Competition from less expensive weight-loss drugs has prompted Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk A/S to announce cuts to pricing for GLP-1 products Wegovy and Ozempic.
Novo’s GLP-1s will cost $675 a month across the board, down from $1,349.02 for Wegovy, pill or injection, and $1,027.51 for Ozempic and Rybelsus, injection and pill, respectively. The prices compare to $1,086.37 for Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
Lilly currently has 60% of the GLP-1 market, Novo’s has declined to about 40%.
Prices took effect Jan. 1.
“I’m confident that payers will accept and welcome these lower list prices, as they’ve been calling for them publicly,” Jamey Millar, Novo’s U.S. operations chief, told Bloomberg.
Dr. Diala Alatassi, obesity medicine physician with Endeavor Health, told The Food Institute cutting prices likely will enable more patients to have access to the drug.
“Especially with 2026 we see a lot of insurance companies have dropped the coverage of weight-loss medications. That added a lot of stress to patients being able to afford these expensive medications out-of-pocket. That has put a lot of patients at risk for weight rebound and caused their chronic medical problems to resurface,” Alatassi said.
“Seeing these medications with a decent price will definitely give the opportunity to a lot of patients in need of this medication a better access.”
With insurance, some patients were paying as little as $25 a month, Bloomberg noted, adding the cuts should help patients who had to pay a greater portion of the cost.
Wegovy and Ozempic pulled in about $32 billion last year, amounting to 67% of Novo’s sales. That compares to $37 billion, or about 56% of sales, for Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Dr. Alexander Nathanson, who owns Navigate Weight & Metabolic, told FI prices already had fallen substantially, with formularies listing Wegovy around $300 a month for the full therapeutic dose.
“While this is well below previous pricing, it’s still high enough to give pause to the average consumer,” Nathanson said. “Studies show that about 1 in 8 Americans are currently using some form of GLP-1 medication. Manufacturers have acknowledged that growth has slowed.
“I predict that the new lower pricing may be appealing to some who were on the fence but it won’t substantially move the needle, barring even further price reductions.”
Dr. James J. Chao, co-founder and chief medical officer at VedaNu Wellness, said a 35% to 50% price reduction represents a sea change that turns the conversation from fringe to urgent overnight. Humans don’t change behaviors overnight though, so expect these changes to take place over years, not months.”
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