Trump mentions ‘fat shot drug' in executive order announcement. Will Ozempic get cheaper?
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 12 aimed at lowering drug prices to better match what other countries charge.
In a White House press conference ahead of his trip to the Middle East, he held a press conference alongside Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
During which, he shared a viral anecdote about his friend getting drugs cheaper abroad, illustrating how high drug prices are in the U.S.: nearly three times higher than 33 comparison countries, according to an HHS report.
How the executive order will lower prices and by how much remains to be seen, as Trump tried a similar effort in 2020. In the meantime, here is what to know about Trump's "fat shot drug" story.
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In the press conference, Trump told a story about a friend who complained to him about the difference in drug prices between the U.S. and other countries.
"A friend of mine who's a businessman, very, very, very top guy, most of you would have heard of him. Highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight ... and he takes the ... fat shot drug," Trump said. "He called me up and he said, 'President ... I'm in London and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take."
"I said, 'It's not working,'" Trump told reporters.
"He said: 'I just paid $88 and in New York I pay $1,300. What the hell is going on?" Trump recalled his friend saying.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment if the "fat drug" Trump was talking about was Ozempic or another drug to treat diabetes that is also used for weight loss.
But the boom in the drugs' popularity has raised concerns that the US is returning to an age of widespread body image issues and fat shaming.
In 2020, Trump announced the "Most Favored Nation" system, which would have made an international reference price for some Medicare-covered drugs. The order was later blocked in court.
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which expanded Medicare benefits to cap out-of-pocket drug prices and insulin and allows the federal government to negotiate Medicare's most expensive drug prices. Ozempic and Wegovy were put up for negotiation earlier this year and the cost cuts were previously scheduled to go into effect in 2027.
Trump's executive order builds on his original policy by also including Medicaid and private sector insurance, USA TODAY reported. It gives drugmakers price targets and threatens to take further action if the companies do not make "significant progress" in the first six months.
Trump said the price cut targets could range anywhere from 59% to 90%. Reuters and The Hill reported that the White House said weight loss drugs are likely to be a part of the drugs the president wants to bring prices down on. The White House also said the existing negotiations were not enough.
Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff, Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, Ken Alltucker, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump 'fat shot drug:' Will weight loss drugs get cheaper under EO?
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