Medicare negotiated lower prices for 15 drugs, including 71% off Ozempic and Wegovy : Shots

Federal government announced Results from the latest round of Medicare drug price negotiations: 15 Medicare drug price cuts to take effect in 2027.

Medicare will get a 71% discount on Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, blockbuster drugs for obesity and type 2 diabetes that have a current list price of about a thousand dollars a month.

The talks also included drugs for asthma, breast cancer and leukemia. discounts ranged from From 38% for Austedo, which treats Huntington's disease, to 85% for Janumet for type 2 diabetes.

“President Trump has directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release. “As we work to make America healthy again, we will use every tool at our disposal to provide affordable health care to seniors.”

A program that would cover medications for more than 50 million seniors is being discussed. first batch of drug prices last year following the passage of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

A provision of the law, passed without Republican support, ended a 20-year ban on Medicare from negotiating drug prices.

Negotiations on the second batch of 15 drugs ended at the end of October.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) says new, lower Medicare prices would save the program $12 billion if the lower negotiated prices went into effect in 2024.

The latest agreed prices are great news for taxpayers and patients, says Dr. Benjamin Romeis a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Federal taxpayers fund most of Medicare, but beneficiaries also must pay copayments and coinsurance.

“These are larger savings than in the first round, but a lot of that has to do with the nature of the drugs being negotiated this year and perhaps some learning from experience,” he says.

The drugs were selected earlier this year based on criteria set out in the law. They did not have to compete with generics or biosimilars, incur large Medicare costs, and remain in the market for a number of years.

Following are lower prices for Ozempic and Wegovy. separate transaction The Trump administration announced the deal on November 6 with Novo Nordisk, which makes both drugs.

The deal was part of the president's efforts to force drug companies to voluntarily lower U.S. prices to match those in other developed countries.

But, oddly enough, the discounts resulting from the Medicare negotiations were less significant than those that Novo Nordisk agreed to provide to Medicare as part of the November 6 deal.

This previous deal set the price at $245 per month for Ozempic and Wegovy. But according to negotiated prices announced this week, prices for Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus — the company's Type 2 diabetes pills — will be $274 a month.

“It’s not clear why Novo [Nordisk] would promise a different price in two different places,” says Rome.

In a company statement, Novo Nordisk explained that it “looks[s] We look forward to further clarification from CMS on how pricing and coverage will work.”

The Trump administration's separate agreement “reflects broader efforts to expand access to obesity treatment under Medicare and Medicaid,” the statement said.

( extended access deal in these two programs, medications will be provided to people with a body mass index over 35 and people with a BMI over 27 who have additional medical conditions. But the details of exactly how this will work remain unclear.)

In a statement, Novo Nordisk reiterated that the company is committed to providing affordable access to its medicines, but “we remain seriously concerned about the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on patients and continue to oppose government pricing.”

AARP, an advocacy group for the 125 million Americans age 50 and older, was pleased with the outcome of the negotiations.

“Today’s announcement marks another significant step forward in our long-standing efforts to lower prescription drug prices,” AARP CEO Dr. Myehia Minter-Jordan said in a statement.

“Older Americans of all political stripes have consistently said that lowering drug prices is a top priority, and these negotiated prices will bring significant relief to millions of people receiving health care.”