WASHINGTON — Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S secured deals with the Trump administration to slash prices for their blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy in exchange for tariff relief and wider Medicare access.

The deals, announced Thursday at a White House event with President Donald Trump, will make some of the most popular drugs in the world available to more people on Medicare, the government health plan for older Americans.

The companies’ medicines will receive a three-year grace period from Trump’s forthcoming duties on pharmaceutical imports, a senior administration official said, similar terms to those clinched by their rivals in previous drug-price deals.

“It’s a triumph for American patients that will save lives and improve the health of millions and millions of Americans,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The announcement comes days after Democrats soundly defeated candidates from Trump’s Republican Party in a series of off-year elections, in which the cost of living was a central issue. The Thursday event gives Trump a platform to demonstrate he’s focused on lowering prices for strapped American consumers, as polls show they’ve panned his handling of the economy.

Historically, Medicare has been barred from covering drugs exclusively for weight loss, though they are available for people with obesity plus conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Starting next year, a broader group, including those who are overweight with prediabetes, will be able to purchase Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo’s Wegovy for $245 a month, officials said. The co-pay for Medicare patients is $50 per month.

Lilly will offer its shot for $50 a month less than the current price through its direct-to-consumer platform called LillyDirect. Novo sells Wegovy for $499 a month via its platform, called NovoCare.

The drugs’ current U.S. list prices are more than $1,000 a month.

The White House event brought together the leaders of rival drugmakers that are transforming how people around the world lose weight. Both Novo Chief Executive Officer Mike Doustdar and Lilly CEO Dave Ricks touted the agreement’s ability to get their medicines to more people.

“Access to life-changing medicine should not be a privilege,” Doustdar said. “It is a societal promise.”

Ricks credited Trump and negotiations with the Department of Health and Human Services for the deal.

“Medicine only is effective when people can access and afford it, and that’s what today’s announcement delivers,” he said. “We’re able to solve a real problem for millions of American people.”

Currently, about 8 million to 9 million people in the U.S. are using the drugs known as GLP-1s, Ricks said at a subsequent Lilly briefing. Adding Medicare coverage could bring in as many as 40 million new eligible patients, and could prompt more commercial insurance plans to cover it, he said.

Under the agreement, Lilly will get fast-track review of its forthcoming weight-loss pill and Novo will get faster review of a higher-dose injection, said the companies and a spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration.

The voucher Lilly received will shrink the approval time for its pill, called orforglipron, to weeks in a review process that can take a year, Ricks said. It could be cleared by March, he said. The lowest dose of the pill, if approved, will cost $149 a month, according to the company.

The agreement follows similar moves from Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca Plc and Germany’s Merck KGaA to stave off more draconian regulations and parry sharp criticism from Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Over the summer, Trump sent letters to 17 drugmakers, including Lilly and Novo, with a list of demands. He insisted they lower the prices they charge Medicaid — the health insurance program for low-income and disabled people — as well as sell discounted medicines directly to patients and offer new drugs in the U.S. at the same price available in other developed nations.

Ricks has been among the most visible pharmaceutical executives interacting with Trump during his second term, and the president praised both corporate leaders during the Oval Office event Thursday.

“Doustdar is a big star, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “Dave Ricks is one of the hottest people in the world.”

Ricks, who has also drawn compliments from Kennedy despite the secretary’s hostility toward the pharmaceutical industry, has been representing the sector with the administration since before Trump’s return to the White House. He joined Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at a dinner with Trump and his top officials before the inauguration at Trump’s Palm Beach club.

In February, Lilly was one of the first drugmakers to announce a major investment in U.S. manufacturing at a splashy event in Washington that was attended by key Cabinet members, including Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. The push to onshore manufacturing was already underway at Lilly, which has been investing heavily to boost production capacity for Zepbound and Mounjaro, its top-selling weight-loss and diabetes treatments.

Novo’s chief executive had kept a lower profile. The Danish drug manufacturer, however, pledged billions in U.S. investment, including a $4.1 billion factory expansion begun last year in North Carolina.

Novo has been losing ground to Lilly in the ultra-competitive U.S. market. The Danish drugmaker said earlier this week it had reached a deal with the U.S to cut prices for Ozempic, Wegovy and its older diabetes pill Rybelsus for some Medicare patients in 2027.

(Skylar Woodhouse, Lauren Dezenski and John Tozzi contributed to this report.)

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.