Report: Pharmaceutical giant exchanges "price for quantity" for medical insurance coverage, weight loss drugs enter mainstream market.

Reportedly, under the pressure of tariffs and stricter pricing rules for several months, multiple pharmaceutical company CEOs entered the White House to announce a drug pricing agreement in exchange for relaxed regulations. However, for Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, their considerations are completely different. This deal is not just a simple "truce", but rather a passport to market expansion. By lowering the prices of drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, they have gained coverage for obesity treatment under health insurance - meaning millions of new patients. They have built a market moat by "trading price for volume": newcomers will not be able to replicate the high-priced early launch model of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. For competitors like Pfizer, this means entering a market with thinner profits and extremely high manufacturing costs. The core of the agreement is health insurance, although the details are not yet clear, the overall logic is clear: pharmaceutical companies provide net price discounts, and the government expands reimbursement for the elderly. At first glance, the discounts are quite substantial. Lilly and Novo Nordisk will provide GLP-1 drugs under federal Medicare for $245 per month, with patients only needing to pay a co-payment of $50 starting as early as April 2026. This is much lower than the previous prices often exceeding thousands of dollars. In exchange, the two companies can nearly double the covered population. Bernstein estimates that this health insurance agreement opens up a new market for approximately 30 million people, with an annual sales potential of $27 billion.