Hailing Ozempic Price Negotiation Plan, Sanders Asks: 'Will Trump Back Down' to Big Pharma?

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders welcomed news Friday that the Biden administration included the expensive and increasingly popular drugs Ozempic and Wegovy on a slate of 15 medications that will soon be subject to price negotiations.

That is, if President-elect Donald Trump allows the Medicare price-negotiation program to continue.

"Will Trump make sure that all Americans—not just those on Medicare—pay no more than people in other countries for Ozempic and Wegovy?" Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), asked in a statement Friday, pointing to the president-elect's previous criticism of Big Pharma. "Or will Trump back down on his commitment and continue to allow the pharmaceutical industry to get away with murder by taking away the government's power to negotiate prices?"

"We will soon find out," said Sanders, who has publicly grilled pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk's CEO over the exorbitant prices of the obesity and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

Reutersreported that shortly following the 2024 election, the pharmaceutical industry began pushing Trump's team to weaken the price negotiation program, which was put in place by the Inflation Reduction Act.

"Pharma expects to piggyback on Republican moves to scrap some of the energy and green subsidy provisions in the legislation," Reuters reported.

The drug industry is reportedly not lobbying senators to block the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the price-negotiation program.

"The Trump administration could go in one of three directions with the Medicare negotiations program: stay the course, water it down, or repeal it altogether," KFF senior vice president Tricia Neuman wrote Friday. "There are potential tradeoffs with each, but the first would be most popular."

"We must keep pushing to expand the wildly popular Medicare negotiation program. Patients fought extremely hard for the passage of these reforms."

HHS said Friday that the 15 newly selected drugs—which add to the 10 medications that have already faced price negotiations—"accounted for about $41 billion in total gross covered prescription drug costs under Medicare Part D."

"When combined with the total gross covered prescription drug costs under Medicare Part D of the 10 drugs selected for the first cycle of negotiations over that same time period, this represents over a third of total gross covered prescription drug costs under Medicare Part D," the agency said.

If the Trump administration allows negotiations on the 15 drugs to proceed, the new prices would take effect in 2027.

"For the last twenty years, drug corporations have rigged the system in their favor—hiking prices at will and leaving millions of patients at their mercy," said Merith Basey, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs. "Thanks to the 2022 prescription drug law, last year Medicare negotiated a better deal on 10 of some of the most expensive and most commonly used drugs covered by the program."

"Today's announcement of 15 additional high-cost drugs builds on that historic progress and will lower costs for millions more patients in 2027," Basey added. "But let's be clear: We must keep pushing to expand the wildly popular Medicare negotiation program. Patients fought extremely hard for the passage of these reforms and they continue to vigorously defend them against pharma's attacks—because nobody should have to choose between life-saving drugs and their basic needs."