Ozempic Deal with GoodRx: Compounding and Price Pressure

By now, it should be obvious. List prices for GLP-1 medicines like semaglutide and tirzepatide are fiction. If you had any doubt, read up on the deal Novo Nordisk just struck with GoodRx to sell both the Ozempic and Wegovy brands of semaglutide for $499 per month. This deal with GoodRx is happening for two simple and related reasons: compounding and price pressure.

In short, prices north of a thousand dollars a month for these remarkable medicines are out the window because the economics of them simply made no sense. Employers and health plans won’t pay those prices and ordinary people can’t afford them no matter how much they need the medicines.

As a result, we have a mess on our hands. Only a small fraction of the people who need these medicines are getting them. And a vibrant market for sketchy compounded products just won’t fade away.

Sketchy Compounded Products

Peptide medicines like semaglutide are not simple molecules to manufacture to a high standard of quality. Novo Nordisk and FDA have been quite vocal about the potential for products from sketchy sources to introduce problems with quality and safety. There are real issues with dosing errors, product identity, and even the potential for immunogenicity.

But three years of shortage and exorbitant pricing have prevented most people who need semaglutide from getting it and this has had profound consequences. The market for sketchy and cheap semaglutide is as strong as ever.

Price Pressure

So price pressure is coming at Novo Nordisk from all directions. The U.S. president has demanded lower prices and threatened drug companies with “every tool in our arsenal” to force them to bring prices down. He has singled out obesity medicine prices in particular. From the other end of the political spectrum Senator Bernie Sanders noted that Novo is making a move in the right direction, but said:

“Let’s not forget. Ozempic costs just $59 in Germany while it costs less than $5 to make. The U.S. must no longer pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.”

So this news tells us GLP-1 prices are moving in the right direction. But we have a long way to go before pricing and other barriers to access are gone so that persons living with obesity can enjoy the full benefits for health these medicines can bring.

Click here, here, here, and here for more on this development.

CVS Pharmacy at Night, photograph by Famartin, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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August 20, 2025