Donald Trump announced a plan on Thursday to reduce the costs of some weight loss drugs for certain patients and expand access to them for people on public health insurance.
The agreement will make oral versions of GLP-1s, which aren’t yet to market but are expected to be approved in the coming months, available at $150 per month for starting doses.
The injectable versions of GLP-1s from the drug manufacturers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk will see reduced prices and expanded coverage, the Trump administration announced, and will be listed on TrumpRx, a Trump-branded public website for prescription drugs, to be purchased directly from the manufacturer.
The average price for these injectables will be about $350, which will “trend down” to $245 a month over the next two years, the Trump administration said. For those on Medicare, the price will be $245 per month, with patients paying only $50 of that as a co-pay. State Medicaid programs would also be able to access those prices if they opt in.
Trump calls the medications the “fat drug”, his term for these semaglutide or tirzepatide shots, known by their brand names: Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Trump has previously said the administration should try to make GLP-1 drugs, which were created to treat diabetes but are now marketed for weight loss as well, more affordable for those who want them.
“You think Biden could have done this? I don’t think so,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday.
While the drugs have been dubbed a miracle amid rising obesity, they are expensive, running upward of $1,000 a month, though some discounts are available for those who buy directly from the companies that bring monthly costs down considerably. Wegovy is $499 a month when purchased directly; Zepbound is $349 for the lowest monthly dose, going up to $499 for higher doses.
Insurance coverage for the drugs can be hard to come by, with many insurers not covering the drugs just for obesity. Some people access compounded versions of the drugs rather than the brand names, given the high cost.
In announcing the program, the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, projected the American public would collectively lose 125m pounds by this time next year. “It is going to have dramatic effects on human health in this country,” he said.
Because of the decreased price, Medicare will cover Wegovy and Zepbound for patients who have obesity or other comorbidities for the first time, the Trump administration said. Now, only those with diabetes or certain additional conditions, including heart disease or sleep apnea, can get coverage for the drugs on Medicare.
Dr Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said the plan was focused on “democratizing access to these medications” and projected that the increased cost of covering these drugs for more people on the public system would be budget-neutral within two years because of costs saved for obesity-related issues.
The move comes as Trump has sought to negotiate prescription drug prices down as part of a “most-favored-nation” plan that calls on manufacturers to price their drugs in the US along the lines of how they price them overseas. In an executive order in May announcing the plan, the president noted that Americans often pay “almost three times more for the exact same medicines, often made in the exact same factories”.
The Biden administration, in its waning days, also sought to make weight-loss drugs more affordable, by calling for public health programs Medicaid and Medicare to fully cover them.
