(The Lion) — President Donald Trump announced deals with drugmakers to slash the cost of certain obesity drugs to as little as $149 a month – a step in what the administration has called a “war on chronic disease.”
The announcement Thursday was cut short due to what appeared to be a medical emergency in the Oval Office, when Novo Nordisk executive Gordon Findlay, who was standing behind Trump, collapsed amid remarks. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the “gentleman is okay” in a statement to the press following the incident.
Before the collapse, Trump had announced that drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are “committing to offer Zepbound and Wegovy at Most Favored Nations rates for American patients.”
“This will slash the cost of Wegovy from $1,350 a month to ultimately $250 a month,” Trump said. “You think Biden could have done this? I don’t think so.” Trump said the monthly cost of Zepbound will be slashed from $1,080 to $346 per month.
Trump called Thursday a “great day for American health and healthcare.”
Both drugmakers also committed that “future GLP-1 weight loss drugs taken orally, which are currently under development, will be sold at no more than $149 per month,” Trump said. “Medicare and Medicaid will finally cover the cost of these weight loss drugs for millions of patients suffering from obesity. Copays for Medicare patients will be as low as $50. This is a tremendous savings.”
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz estimated “Americans will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms” as he spoke about the drug deals.
“But I don’t measure in pounds, I measure it in saved lives,” Oz added. “People who can sleep again because they can breathe when they go to bed, folks whose knees don’t hurt, people who don’t have heart attacks, renal failure, dementia, all the things we know are associated with obesity and much more.”
The announcement follows a broader initiative of the Trump administration to lower drug prices and launch a website called TrumpRX.gov, which will soon be available for Americans to purchase prescriptions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thanked Trump for “declaring war on chronic disease.”
“If we want to solve the chronic disease crisis, we have to tackle obesity,” he said, calling it the primary driver of chronic disease. “50% of our adult population are obese or overweight and it drives about 50% of healthcare costs in this country. Diabetes, cardiac diseases, we are going to see a decline because of this historic agreement.”
Kennedy said Trump is the friend “of the forgotten American,” noting that obesity is a “disease of poverty” and that prior to the agreement, the weight loss drugs were primarily available only to wealthy Americans.
He noted that the weight loss drugs are not a “silver bullet” but rather an “arrow in our quiver” to fight obesity and emphasized the importance of addressing root causes as well.
