A weight-cutting medication is trimming its own fat.
Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind the blockbuster weight-loss shots Wegovy and Ozempic, is lowering out-of-pocket costs.
Americans can access both drugs for $499 a month through Novo’s cash-pay pharmacy, NovoCare.
That is down from the drug’s list price of $1,350. Novo tells the Daily Mail that it projects roughly one in 10 prescriptions could be from people paying cash.
The discounted price is also being made available nationwide through a partnership with GoodRx.
Novo is being forced into the move. Once the clear market leader, it has faced intensifying competition from US-based rivals like Eli Lilly and Hims and Hers.
Clinical studies have shown Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound – which use different active ingredients – deliver greater weight loss than Novo’s offerings.
At a list price of about $1,080 per month, Lilly’s drugs also undercut Novo’s official pricing.
Politicians across the aisle have been lobbing insults at pharmaceutical companies over US-based prices
Ozempic accidentally became a cultural phenomenon.
The drug, first delivered to diabetes patients in 2017, had a huge impact on appetite suppression and weight loss.
The weight management benefit made doctors start prescribing the drug off-label for patients hoping to thin waistlines.
It blew up in popularity in 2021, when Wegovy, a higher-dose version of the same compound, won FDA approval.
Celebrity use, skyrocketing demand, and employer debates over health-care costs cemented its reputation as a game-changing but controversial drug.
Even airline CEOs said they expected to spend less money on fuel as passengers lost weight.
As it became a phenomenon, the drug also spiraled into a political flashpoint. Lawmakers have blasted Novo’s pricing practices, noting that the same injections cost far less abroad.
In May 2023, former Novo CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen was called to testify before Congress.
Doctors started prescribing Novo’s products to patients for weight loss after the drug was initially used for diabetes patients
Novo named Maziar Mike Doustdar the company’s new CEO in July 2025 after the company lost its shine
These charts show the different probability of patients reaching weight loss goals in either Mounjaro (green line) or Ozempic (yellow line) over the course of the study
Read More
EXCLUSIVE
As users panic over Mounjaro price hike, experts reveal how to keep using weight loss jabs for less
This year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at forcing pharmaceutical companies to lower costs for American consumers, singling out Ozempic as an example.
‘The weight loss drug Ozempic costs ten times more in the United States than the rest of the developed world,’ he lamented at the signing.
‘Ten times more. Why? What did we do?’
Scientific data have also fueled the pressure. A 2024 study concluded that patients using Lilly’s ingredients were more than twice as likely to lose at least one-sixth of their body weight compared to Wegovy’s ingredients.
But, by trimming costs for uninsured Americans, Novo is betting it can retain some of the shine it has lost to competitors.
So far, Wall Street and its new partners are excited about the prospect.
Share prices of Novo are up 4.5 percent today on the announcement. GoodRX’s stock is up nearly 30 percent following the news.
‘Novo Nordisk is taking a progressive approach to drive access and meet patients where they are,’ a spokesperson for the company told the Daily Mail.
The company pointed out that Ozempic has the most FDA approved uses in type 2 diabetes, and can help patients improve blood sugar and reduce the risk of cardiovascular and liver disease.