WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday evening unveiled the prices for 15 drugs that were the subject of Medicare negotiations for the second year, saying it saved $8.5 billion, or 36%, compared to what it would’ve paid last year had the negotiated prices been in effect.
Officials took pains to play up their negotiating prowess as superior to that of their counterparts in the Biden administration. The program, part of the Inflation Reduction Act, is a signature achievement of the Biden administration.
“This year’s results stand in stark contrast to last year’s,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said in a statement. “Using the same process with a bolder direction, we have achieved substantially better outcomes for taxpayers and seniors in the Medicare Part D program — not the modest or even counterproductive ‘deals’ we saw before.”
But the timing and process of announcing the negotiated prices seemed designed to avoid attention. Unlike previous deals with individual drugmakers, there was no White House press event or direct engagement from President Trump. The administration released the prices around 6 p.m. EST on Tuesday, and didn’t alert the press in advance, as they’ve done for other drug announcements.
The negotiated-price drugs include Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, sold under the brands Ozempic and Rybelsus for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss and cardiovascular risk prevention, though Medicare doesn’t currently cover the drug specifically for weight loss. Those three GLP-1 drugs collectively accounted for more than $14 billion in gross Medicare drug costs from November 2023 to November 2024. The true cost is likely significantly lower after factoring in proprietary rebates that private Medicare insurers and drug middlemen set.
The administration already announced price cuts for semaglutide, the highest-profile drug among the 15 up for negotiation this year, and the one Medicare spends the most on. That deal was struck separately from the Medicare-negotiation program, and it included Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 treatments, too.
STAT Plus: Biden’s law sets Trump up for success in negotiating cheaper Medicare drug prices
However, the $245 a month price that the administration announced earlier for GLP-1 drugs in Medicare is lower than the prices announced Tuesday as part of the negotiation program, which include $276.78 a month for commonly used doses of Ozempic and Rybelsus, and $385.63 a month for the highest dose of Wegovy.
Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said it’s “disappointing” that the negotiated prices aren’t as low as the prices reached through the administration’s voluntary deals with Novo and Lilly. The details of the voluntary deals haven’t been disclosed and manufacturers may back out of them, since they aren’t legally bound to them as they are to the Medicare-negotiated prices, she said.
“If the price that they believe is reasonable for that drug is $245, which was the price that was first announced, then it seems that they could have gotten that deal and made it mandatory through the Inflation Reduction Act price negotiation, and that would have been a better deal for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers,” Dusetzina said.
Gross Medicare costs were about $42 billion for all of the drugs chosen for negotiation this year. Prices negotiated this year will take effect in 2027, while prices negotiated last year take effect in January.
Estimated out-of-pocket savings for the 55 million Medicare enrollees with drug coverage is estimated to be $685 million. Using a similar approach to estimate savings, the Biden administration last year said negotiations saved the Medicare program about $6 billion overall, a 22% reduction.
A few factors may have helped the Trump administration negotiate greater savings, including the drugs selected for negotiation and the fact that the Trump team benefited from the experience of the previous administration’s efforts.
Next year, Medicare will negotiate prices for another 15 drugs, including for the first time physician-administered drugs.
