Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have become the latest pharma giants to strike price-reduction deals with the White House, agreeing to sell their weight loss drugs at cut-rate prices to patients in the U.S.
For Eli Lilly, the pricing agreement unveiled Thursday features injected Zepbound (tirzepatide) and orforglipron, a once-daily oral treatment for obesity that has yet to gain approval.
“Today marks a pivotal moment in U.S. health care policy and a defining milestone for Lilly, made possible through collaboration with the Trump Administration,” Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a release.
Under the Lilly deal, self-pay patients will be able to access Zepbound, orforglipron and certain other medicines at discounts through Lilly’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel. The discounts will leave the obesity drugs “priced similar” to costs in Europe, Lilly added.
In a release, Novo did not reveal the prices it will charge in the U.S., but said that its agreement covers its diabetes drug Ozempic and obesity treatment Wegovy, and that they will be made available through Medicaid and Medicare Part D.
Novo added that it expects a negative “low single-digit impact on global sales growth in 2026” as a result of the agreement.
In a press conference Thursday, President Donald Trump said patients on Medicare will be able to access both companies’ injected obesity offerings for $50 per month.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added his praise for Lilly and Novo and said that Americans will “lose 125 million pounds by this time next year” because of the agreements.
“Obesity is a disease of poverty and these obesity drugs have only been available for people who have wealth,” RFK Jr. said. “At one time, the highest concentration of prescriptions in this country was the upper west side of Manhattan. What about the people who live in rural areas, who live in food desserts?”
The agreements come weeks after Pfizer and AstraZeneca struck deals with the administration to slash prices of many of their drugs in the U.S. The accords are in response to Trump’s most favored nation (MFN) program, which seeks to align the prices of U.S. prescription drugs with the lowest prices offered in other developed nations.
Lilly added that it will also offer its diabetes drugs Trulicity and Mounjaro through its DTC platform, LillyDirect, at a 50% to 60% discount to current list prices.
As for Zepbound, it will be available for $299 to $449 per month, depending on dosage, through LillyDirect. Meanwhile, orforglipron will be available at $149 at its lowest dose. The Lilly pricing deal will also include Emgality, the company’s migraine prevention drug.
In exchange, the administration granted Pfizer a three-year grace period in which it will be immune from Section 232 tariffs on pharmaceutical imports.
Lilly and Novo added that their their deals with the government also include a three-year period of relief from tariffs.
Additionally, the FDA announced today that it has granted national priority vouchers to Lilly, for its application for approval of orforglipron, and to Novo, for its application for an added indication for Wegovy. The regulator also granted vouchers to four other companies.
The Commissioner’s National Priority Review Voucher (CNPV) program speeds the review process for applications and are granted in areas where there is an unmet public need or to companies deemed to be acting in the nation’s best interests. Fifteen vouchers have been granted through the CNPV pathway.
Five weeks ago, Pfizer became the first drug company to strike a deal with the White House, agreeing to provide certain prescription drugs at reduced MFN prices. The company also announced its planned participation in the forthcoming federally operated DTC drug purchasing platform, TrumpRx.gov.
Last month, AstraZeneca reached an agreement to lower prices for “eligible patients with prescriptions for chronic diseases” in the U.S. The British company also agreed to offer some drugs through TrumpRx.gov.
Additionally, EMD Serono, the U.S. arm of Germany’s Merck KGaA, has to sell its fertility therapies at sharp discounts through TrumpRx.
“The United States has just 4% of the world’s population and consumes only 13% of all prescription drugs, yet pharmaceutical companies make 75% of their profits from the American customer,” Trump said on Thursday. “To address this chronic unfairness, I signed an executive order earlier this year instructing my administration to do everything in our power to implement most favored nation drug pricing.”
Trump laid out his MFN pricing plan in an executive order in May and turned up the heat in July with a barrage of letters sent to 17 of the world’s largest drugmakers. The letters specifically called on the drugmakers to offer MFN prices to “every single Medicaid patient” and pledge not to set “better prices” for drugs in other comparator countries than those offered in the U.S.
At the time the letters were sent out, the president imposed a 60-day deadline for the targeted companies to respond. If those companies failed to “step up” on the drug pricing issue, the White House threatened to “deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.”
