The Trump administration made a deal with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower prices for blockbuster anti-obesity and diabetes medications in the GLP-1 drug class, as well as expand coverage access for Medicare beneficiaries.
The deal means the revolutionary drugs will be covered for Medicare patients struggling with obesity. Administration officials also said the agreement will lower the costs of the medications for Medicare, Medicaid, and cash-paying patients.
President Donald Trump announced the agreement on Thursday in the Oval Office. He said the deal will lower the prices of Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound, with patients expected to see lower prices next year.
“This is a great day for American health and healthcare, and for all American patients,” Trump said. “These are things that are miracles.”
Senior administration officials told reporters ahead of the announcement that lowering out-of-pocket costs for GLP-1 medications is a central part of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, spearheaded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Obesity-related illnesses are the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that more than 70% of Americans are obese or overweight.
Kennedy said during the press conference that the new lower prices will have the most benefit for lower-income and middle-income individuals, who have not been able to afford the thousands of dollars a month that the drugs have traditionally cost.
The health secretary also said that it will largely benefit individuals living in food deserts or otherwise with limited access to quality nutrition.
“President Trump is the friend of the Forgotten American. Obesity is a disease of poverty, overwhelmingly, and these drugs have only been available for people who have wealth,” Kennedy said.
Medicare currently covers GLP-1 medications specifically for the management of Type 2 diabetes, but senior administration officials told reporters ahead of the announcement that Medicare will now cover anti-obesity medications for patients meeting qualifying criteria.
Medicare patients with a body mass index higher than 27, who have comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease or prediabetes, as well as patients with a BMI higher than 30, will be eligible for coverage of GLP-1 medications with a $50 copay each month for approved indications.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated that roughly 10% of the nearly 69 million Americans enrolled in Medicare will be eligible for the new GLP-1 drugs based on the new expanded criteria.
Medicare prices are expected to be effective by mid-2026, and access through state-run Medicaid will depend on when each state opts in to the deals.
Patients with cash-pay and employer-sponsored insurance will also be able to access lower prices as early as January with the launch of the TrumpRx platform, which will connect patients directly to drug manufacturers to obtain “most favored nation” prices negotiated by the federal government.
TrumpRx prices for injectable and oral GLP-1 medications will start at $350 per month, approximately a fifth of the current list price for the drug. Administration officials told reporters that the prices on TrumpRx will trend downward over the next 24 months to $245 per month.
Senior administration officials told reporters that the deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk follow the contours of the other “most favored nation” drug pricing deals announced earlier this year with Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
The “most favored nation” policy aims to bring U.S. drug prices in line with those of other developed nations and has been a central part of Trump’s strategy to lower healthcare costs.
Senior administration officials did not provide specifics about what led to the agreement. However, they told reporters that the conversations involved a balance of expanding Medicare coverage for GLP-1 medication, increasing domestic manufacturing investment, and tariffs.
Both Kennedy and Trump have criticized GLP-1 medications in the past as so-called “fat loss drugs,” and many members of the MAHA movement have said pharmacology is not the primary solution to the obesity crisis.
In September 2024, shortly after he joined Trump’s reelection campaign, Kennedy bashed Ozempic on social media, saying public health should focus on improving the food supply instead of lining “the wallets of distant Big Pharma execs.”
But during the press conference, Kennedy said that lowering the price of GLP-1s will be a “lifesaver” and an “arrow in our quiver” in the fight against obesity.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz also said that GLP-1s are not a silver bullet against obesity but are an essential piece of making the country healthy again.
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Senior officials also stated that, as part of the deal, manufacturers will be required to provide patients with tools to improve their lifestyle choices, including increasing physical activity and improving diet quality.
They also said they anticipate the deals to be cost-neutral over time, using the cost savings from lower negotiated prices to cover the increasing coverage. They added that they expect the decreased rates of obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and kidney failure to save roughly $10 to $20 million annually.
Oz said that collectively Americans “will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms” next year, as well as improve their quality of life.
“People can sleep again because they can breathe when they go to bed. Folks whose knees don’t hurt, people don’t have heart attacks, renal failure, dementia, all the things we know are associated with obesity and much more,” said Oz.
