New Year, New and Higher List Prices for GLP-1 Medicines
This will be an interesting year for drug pricing, especially for obesity medicines – if you can even figure out what is really going on with them. It appears that list prices for Ozempic (semaglutide), Mounjaro (tirzepatide), and Zepbound (also tirzepatide) have all gone up this year. The Wegovy (semaglutide) list price did not change. We are starting the new year with new prices for GLP-1 medicines.
At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry is reportedly reaching out to the incoming Trump administration to put a halt to price negotiations for Medicare drug prices. Making drugs more accessible by making them more affordable does not seem to be a high priority.
A Murky Story
Let’s be clear that nothing about drug pricing is clear – except that they are very high and in the U.S., they are higher than just about anywhere else in the world.
Even so, it is clear enough that the list prices of Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Zepbound have all gone up this year. Ozempic’s price went up by three percent. The list price for Mounjaro has gone up to $1,080 for a month’s supply. That is a one percent increase from the 2024 price of $1,069.
Zepbound is slightly more confusing because Lilly appears to have raised the list price for this drug in prefilled syringes to $1,086. It was launched in 2023 at a price of $1,060, which means the price has gone up by 2.5%. But then recently, Lilly also came out with Zepbound in single-dose vials at a list price of $399 (2.5 mg) or $550 per month (5 mg) for cash (not insured) customers – a large nominal cut in list price.
The list price of Wegovy is unchanged at $1,349 per month. It is also the most expensive of all these medicnes. Another anomaly is Januvia (a DPP-4 inhibitor for diabetes). Merck lowered its list price to bring it more in line with net prices.
Will Medicare Negotiations Bring Prices Down?
It goes without saying that drug companies like higher prices because they mean higher profits. In a normal, functioning market, when consumers balk, a company’s desire for higher prices cools off.
But the market for these drugs is different. Prices get negotiated and net prices are rarely visible to the public with any clarity.
Medicare drug price negotiations were starting to put a lid on that and Ozempic was on the list for these negotiations. But the drug industry seems to hope that the Trump administration will help them out and put an end to all that.
This is what we call an awful mess. We are waiting to see who is brave and smart enough to fix it.
Click here, here, and here for more on the drug price increases for 2025. For more on the industry ploy to put an end to drug price negotiations, click here.
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January 16, 2025
