The President Blurts an Ozempic Price, Oz and Markets Twitch

It’s entertaining, but not really funny. At an Oval Office press event Thursday, which was supposed to be all about fertility drugs, President Trump opened his remarks talking about “a certain drug” that costs $130 in London and $1,300 in New York. “So now we’re going to be paying, instead of $1,300, you’ll be paying about $150.” Initially, people did not know what he was talking about. It was not part of the script for this event. But eventually a reporter connected the dots and asked if the President had been talking about the price for Ozempic. He confirmed it:

“I was referring to Ozempic … or the fat loss drug.”

Mehmet Oz, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), began looking uncomfortable and subtly shook his head. He stepped up to the mic and said:

“We have not negotiated those yet. We’re going to be rolling these out over time.”

Oops.

Loose Lips Sink … Drug Stocks

With that, stock prices for Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly started dropping. On Friday, the value of Novo Nordisk stock dropped by as much as seven percent in Copenhagen. So, no, this is surely not funny to folks who work at these drug companies.

The pressure on drug prices is very real for very good reasons. It also has very real effects. Right now, Novo Nordisk is going through painful job losses as the company struggles to adjust to new realities in global markets for drugs they have spent billions to develop.

Some are skeptical about the competence of this administration in pursuing the goal of lowering drug prices. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Becky Woolfe says:

“Outlays on specialty medications for chronic diseases account for more than half of U.S. drug spending. Unfortunately TrumpRx, an attempt to mitigate pocketbook pain for patients, will achieve the opposite.”

These are serious challenges that require a thoughtful approach. Is that what we are getting?

Click here, here, and here for more on the President’s remarks about Ozempic pricing. For more about TrumpRx, click here and here.

Weighing the Cost of Ozempic, illustration created in the style of Quentin Matsys with Gemini image generation for ConscienHealth

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September 18, 2025