Trump’s Ozempic Deal Will Supersede Medicare-Negotiated Price

A deal between President Donald Trump and Novo Nordisk A/S to slash Ozempic and Wegovy prices under a most-favored-nation plan will override the costs for the blockbuster drugs negotiated separately by the Medicare agency.

“Due to the terms and timelines of the negotiated deals, the MFN prices for covered GLP-1 drugs are expected to supersede the IRA prices,” a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in an email Friday.

The clarification comes after the US government unveiled earlier this week the negotiated prices for the 15 drugs selected for the second round of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. The Trump administration, under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) program, cut 71% off the list price of Novo’s diabetes and obesity treatments, Ozempic and Wegovy.

However, the agency’s $274 deal for a month’s supply of the two drugs was higher than the $245 Medicare price announced weeks earlier in Trump’s latest most-favored-nation (MFN) deal to lower US drug costs by tying them to international prices.

The prices under the most-favored-nation plan are scheduled to launch in 2026, while the negotiated drug prices for the second were slated to run in 2027.

The two prices left drug pricing and industry experts unclear on how the prices would be applied under Medicare. Clarity over the different drug prices matters because they will both be in effect in 2027, drug industry watchers said.