President Donald Trump unveiled steep discounts on GLP-1 weight loss drugs in deals with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk in a Thursday Oval Office announcement.
The obesity drugs Zepbound, marketed by Lilly, and Wegovy, marketed by Novo Nordisk, will be available at slashed prices through Trump’s innovative direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketplace called TrumpRx before the end of the year. Federal health programs will cover the drugs, with copays for Medicare patients as low as $50.
Wegovy, currently priced at $1,350 per month, will cost $250, while Zepbound, currently priced at $1,080 per month, will cost $346. Future GLP-1s taken orally rather than via injection will cost no more than $149 per month under the deal.
Americans spend 520% more for Zepbound than patients in Europe and 1,400% more for Wegovy, Trump said.
The site TrumpRx.com is expected to launch by the end of the year, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Commissioner Mehmet Oz said.
“It’s got to be successful, it’s got my name on it,” Trump said.
In addition, Lilly will invest $27 billion and Novo Nordisk will invest $10 billion to onshore pharmaceutical manufacturing to America.Trump described the investments as a national security priority.
“We saw during COVID, we made almost no medicines here. We had to go to China,” he said.
The deals stem from an executive order signed in May to implement “most favored nation” drug pricing that sought to secure the lowest global prices on pharmaceuticals, ending the heavy surcharges that Americans often pay for drugs despite Americans financing much of the world’s research and development through the National Institutes of Health.
The executive order dispatched the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department to ensure foreign countries are paying their fair share in pharmaceutical research and development, while calling for the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices in direct-to-consumer sales with the industry akin to what European countries pay.
To compel pharmaceutical companies to come to the negotiating table, the administration threatened “an aggressive suite of reforms” through new CMS rules, Federal Trade Commission crackdowns, drug reimportation and restricting exports.
The companies have also committed to providing any new drugs at most-favored-nation pricing.
Trump said that he was “a little surprised” that the drug companies’ stock prices had jumped following news of the deal breaking on Tuesday.
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