Novo, Lilly's shares drop as Trump vows weight-loss drug price cuts

By Stine Jacobsen, Bhanvi Satija and Sriparna Roy

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Shares of weight-loss drug makers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly fell on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the price of Novo's popular Ozempic treatment would be lowered. 

Although Ozempic is approved to treat diabetes, it has been frequently used in the United States as a so-called off-label treatment for obesity and often served as a generic reference to weight-loss drugs. The drug shares the same active ingredient - semaglutide - as the Danish drugmaker's blockbuster obesity treatment Wegovy.

Since taking office in January, Trump has been striving to narrow the gap between U.S. and foreign drug prices. Under its "most favored nation" policy, the U.S. government will require drugmakers to charge patients in the country no more than in other wealthy nations.

NEGOTIATING LEVER

Novo's shares fell to a near three-week low of 342.30 crowns, and were last down 6.3% to 343 crowns. Shares in rivals dropped as well, with Lilly down more than 3% and Zealand Pharma down nearly 7%. Viking Therapeutics was down about 2%.

The comment from Trump has investors worried about a worst-case scenario for the obesity landscape, said Kevin Gade, chief operating officer at investment firm Bahl & Gaynor.

Trump made the comments during a White House event on Thursday, where he announced a deal with Germany's Merck to cut the cost of some drugs needed for in-vitro fertilisation in exchange for protection from future tariffs.

Trump was asked by reporters to identify the drug that he said earlier at the event would be made less expensive.

"I was referring to Ozempic, or - I was referring to - the fat loss drug?.... They'll be much lower," Trump said.

Trump has earlier said that under his administration's plans, the price of Ozempic would be reduced to $150 from $1,300. Ozempic has a list price of about $1,000 for a month's supply, but is sold directly by Novo to cash-pay customers for $499 per month.

Mehmet Oz, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was at the event on Thursday, said the agency had not yet finished negotiating the price for the GLP-1 class drugs, which include Ozempic, Wegovy, and Lilly's Mounjaro.

Bernstein analyst Courtney Breen said Trump's comment seem like a "negotiating lever", adding that this would also set a new precedent for upcoming oral launches for the obesity drugs, providing little space for price differentials.

"We do remind investors, that we are watching a private negotiation play out in public here, and the $150 price is not yet set-in stone," said Breen.

It's hard to know if Trump said that to bring the obesity players to the negotiating table or if he truly believes that will be the final price, said Bahl & Gaynor's Gade.

A Novo spokesperson said the company was in discussions with the Trump administration over the "most favored nation" order. 

Lilly also said it is in discussions with the administration, and did not have any specific details to share.

UBS analysts said they had already factored potential U.S. price cuts into their forecasts.

"If the prices mentioned by President Trump end up being the negotiated prices then this would be more than captured by our numbers," they wrote.

(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Bhanvi Satija in London and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru. Editing by Terje Solsvik, Mark Potter and Shinjini Ganguli)