(Reuters) -Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are expected to announce deals with the White House to offer the lowest dose of their weight-loss drugs at $149 per month, in exchange for Medicare coverage, Endpoints News reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Patients in the U.S. currently pay the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than in other developed nations, and President Donald Trump has been pressuring drugmakers to lower their prices to what patients pay elsewhere.
In return, the drugs would gain coverage under Medicare, a federal health insurance program in the U.S. for people aged 65 and older or who have disabilities, which would open up a huge new set of reimbursement, according to the Endpoints report.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that the Trump administration is also negotiating deals with Lilly and Novo to allow the lowest doses of some of their obesity drugs to be sold to via TrumpRx, a White House initiative.
The starting dose of Lilly’s Zepbound would be sold for $299, $50 less than what the company currently charges patients buying through its direct-to-consumer website online, one of the people told the Journal.
Trump is expected to announce them Thursday morning at the White House, alongside pharmaceutical executives, according to the WSJ report.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, however, said she would not get ahead of Trump on any drug-related announcements but was committed to lowering prices.
“I won’t get ahead of the president on any future announcements, but I will echo his strong commitment to bringing down drug prices in this country,” she told reporters at a briefing at the White House, citing previous announcements about most-favored-nation prices. “We’re working with pharmaceutical companies to do that every day.”
A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk told Reuters that the company is engaged in constructive discussions with the (Trump) administration regarding the most-favored-nation executive order.
Lilly did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Pfizer was the first drugmaker to announce a deal with the Trump administration. In September, the company agreed to lower prescription drug prices in the Medicaid program to what it charges in other developed countries in exchange for tariff relief. UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, in October, also signed a similar pact.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income.
Trump had also said Pfizer would offer that most-favored-nation pricing on all new drugs launched in the U.S. and flagged that other drugmakers would follow suit.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy, Christy Santhosh and Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Leroy Leo, Shailesh Kuber and Shilpi Majumdar)
