Amid efforts on several fronts to improve the affordability of its GLP-1 medications for diabetes and obesity, Novo Nordisk is taking a new approach by aiming straight for semaglutide’s list price.
Still, some analysts appear skeptical about the overall impact of the newly disclosed move.
Novo on Tuesday announced plans to cut the U.S. wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) of its semaglutide products—representing the base cost of the medicines before rebates, discounts or concessions—to $675 per month, effective Jan. 1, 2027.
The new list price applies to the full suite of Novo’s semaglutide offerings, including both injectable and oral Wegovy for obesity, as well as injectable Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes and its pill counterpart Rybelsus, according to a Feb. 24 press release.
For Wegovy, the WAC reduction represents a 50% knockdown from its current list price, versus a 35% reduction for Ozempic, Novo explained.
"Both public and private payers, as well as patients, have been calling for a lowering of list prices,” Jamey Millar, Novo’s executive vice president of U.S. operations, said of the move in an emailed statement.
“This reduction, 50% for Wegovy and 35% for Ozempic, most immediately benefits those patients subject to high-deductible health plans or co-insurance benefit designs where their out-of-pocket is directly linked to the list price,” he explained.
Notably, the new list prices—which will not affect the direct-to-patient, self-pay prescriptions that now make up a key component of Novo’s commercial GLP-1 strategy—are slated to go live the same day that Ozempic and Wegovy succumb to lower Medicare prices as mandated under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Given that the list price move is self-pay agnostic, it will likely only benefit a small portion of new prescriptions, of which cash-pay channels now hold an “overwhelming share,” Citi analyst Geoffrey Meacham said this week, as quoted by Reuters.
Novo’s list price reduction follows several other moves—focused on other sections of the prescription market—to boost semaglutide access in the U.S.
Perhaps most notably, the Danish drugmaker last year launched a direct-to-consumer sales channel dubbed NovoCare Pharmacy, which now offers Ozempic and Wegovy at reduced prices for cash-paying patients who aren’t using insurance.
Novo further reduced its self-pay semaglutide prices in October as part of a drug pricing deal with the White House, setting the price for all doses of Wegovy and all but the 2-mg dose of Ozempic at $349 per month after a two-month introductory period of $199/month for starting doses. The highest dose of Ozempic costs $499 for self-pay patients.
Meanwhile, Novo’s recently approved Wegovy pill is being offered at an even deeper markdown for cash-paying patients, who can access the oral obesity medication’s starting dose at $149 per month.
Under Novo’s White House agreement, patients are also being directed toward Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy, including the latter drug’s new pill formulation, through the government’s recently debuted drug-purchasing portal TrumpRx.gov.
The government website does not sell medications directly—instead, it leads patients to other purchasing platforms or, in certain instances, allows self-pay patients to print coupons for use at participating brick-and-mortar pharmacies.
Eli Lilly has also made pricing concessions with the White House, and the Indianapolis drugmaker has found success selling its rival obesity and diabetes drugs, Zepbound and Mounjaro, through its own self-pay sales platform, LillyDirect.