THEY SAID IT! PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLS OUT BIG PHARMA’S EGREGIOUS PRICING FOR DIABETES AND WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS IN U.S. MARKET

Brand Name Manufacturers’ Prices for Blockbuster GLP-1 Medications Are Unsustainable for American Patients, Taxpayers and the U.S. Health Care System

In case you missed it, President Trump recently highlighted the egregious prices Big Pharma charges American patients, taxpayers and the health care system for blockbuster GLP-1 medications for diabetes and weight loss compared to the prices brand name manufacturers set for those same products in other developed countries.

“Ozempic or Mounjaro, in London you get it for $88, in New York you get it for $1,200, you can’t even buy it. It’s very unfair,” President Trump said during a February 10 interview on Fox News Channel.

By setting egregious launch prices on new medications, blocking competition by gaming the patent system and hiking prices at rates outpacing inflation, Big Pharma has long targeted U.S. patients and the U.S. health care system with the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world – and that bad deal remains true for blockbuster GLP-1 drugs.

An August 2023 analysis from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker found that list prices for several blockbuster GLP-1 drugs, including Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus products, as well as Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, are significantly higher in the U.S. compared to other wealthy countries.

For example, the analysis found the U.S. list price for Wegovy was $1,349, while the next highest price in a comparable country was $328 in Germany.

During a recent interview with Inside Health Policy, Joe Grogan, director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council during the first Trump administration, echoed a similar sentiment, saying, “It’s one thing for the developing world to get drugs and low cost, but why should Europe be able to freeload?”

To keep prices high on GLP-1s for weight loss in the U.S., Big Pharma has blocked competition by deploying a tried-and-true patent abuse playbook on these products that are effectively older diabetes medications repackaged for a different indication. Read more on Big Pharma’s patent abuse that blocks competition and keeps prices high HERE.

Prices of GLP-1s Unsustainable for U.S. Health Care System

Numerous analyses have found Big Pharma’s prices are unsustainable for American patients and the U.S. health care system.

In March 2024, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that covering GLP-1 weight loss drugs “at their current prices would cost the federal government more than it would save from reducing other health care spending.” In October of the same year, the CBO followed this up with an analysis that found that the cost of expanding Medicare coverage for anti-obesity medications (AOMs), including blockbuster brand name GLP-1s, “would increase federal spending, on net, by about $35 billion from 2026 to 2034.”

In August 2024, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that if Medicare Part D coverage for high-priced GLP-1 weight loss drugs expanded for new classifications such as cardiovascular disease, it could cost the U.S. health care system upwards of $145 billion.

Read more on how Big Pharma’s egregious prices on GLP-1 diabetes and weight loss drugs are unsustainable for the U.S. health care system, including for Medicare and employers, HERE and HERE.

Read more on bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable HERE.