Novo Nordisk is chopping prices again for Wegovy, but doctors say the expense will remain challenging for patients without insurance.
The drugmaker said Monday that it has started selling higher doses of the injectable obesity treatment for $349 a month to patients paying the full bill. That’s down from $499, and in line with terms of a drug pricing agreement outlined earlier this month by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Novo also started a temporary offer of $199 a month for the first two months of low doses of Wegovy and the drug’s counterpart for diabetes, Ozempic. The new pricing will be available at pharmacies nationwide, through home delivery and from some telemedicine providers.
Rival Eli Lilly also plans price breaks for its weight-loss drug Zepbound once it gets a new, multi-dose pen on the market. Lilly has said it will sell a starter dose of Zepbound for $299 a month and additional doses at up to $449. Both represent $50 reductions from current prices for sales directly to patients.
Obesity treatments like Zepbound and Wegovy have soared in popularity in recent years. Known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, the drugs work by targeting hormones in the gut and brain that affect appetite and feelings of fullness.
In clinical trials, they helped people shed 15% to 22% of their body weight — up to 50 pounds or more in many cases. But affordability has been a persistent challenge for patients.
A recent poll by the nonprofit KFF found that about half of the people who take the treatments say it was hard to afford them.
Both Lilly and Novo announced price cuts earlier this year that brought the cost of higher doses of their treatments down to around $500 a month.
Previous research has shown that people have difficulty paying for a medication when the cost rises above $100 per month, said Stacie Dusetzina, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor and prescription drug pricing expert.
She said Novo's new prices are “not going to really move the needle for a person who doesn’t have a pretty reasonable amount of disposable income.”
Dr. Laura Davisson said the medication would still be unaffordable for patients on Medicaid in states where the government-funded program for people with low incomes doesn’t cover the drug.
The bigger issue is expanding coverage of the treatments, said Davisson, a West Virginia University obesity specialist.
“We’ve had hundreds of people lose coverage over the last couple of years, and we keep seeing more and more insurers drop coverage,” she said, adding that her practice has started a group support program to help those who have lost coverage.
Coverage is slated to improve starting next year for at least one big payer under a deal announced by the Trump administration. The federally funded Medicare program, mainly for people ages 65 and older, will begin covering the treatments for people who have severe obesity and others who are overweight or obese and have serious health problems.
Those who qualify will pay $50 copays for the medicine.
Administration officials also said lower prices for the drugs that they negotiated for Medicare also will be provided for Medicaid programs.
That will help expand coverage, according to Dave Moore, Novo's executive vice president for U.S. operations. He said Medicaid programs in 20 states cover the drug for obesity.
Novo officials expect around 40 million more Americans will gain access to their drug through coverage expansions for Medicaid and Medicare.
Neither Moore nor representatives for Eli Lilly would say whether they plan additional price cuts. Both companies also are seeking approval of pill versions of the drugs, which would come with new prices.
Lilly spokesperson Courtney Kasinger said the company believes obesity treatments should be covered just like those for any other chronic condition.
“We're going to continue to work to improve coverage as much as we can across all channels, all stakeholders,” she said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Boxes for the medications Wegovy and Zepbound are arranged for a photograph in California on May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/JoNel Aleccia, File)
Novo Nordisk President and CEO Mike Doustdar speaks during an event about drug prices with President Donald Trump, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Novo Nordisk President and CEO Mike Doustdar speaks during an event about drug prices with President Donald Trump, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
MILAN (AP) — Milan’s storied Teatro alla Scala celebrates its gala season premiere Sunday with a Russian opera for the second time since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But this year, instead of drawing protests for showcasing the invader’s culture, a flash mob will demonstrate for peace.
La Scala’s music director Riccardo Chailly will conduct Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” for the gala season opener that draws luminaries from culture, business and politics for one of the most anticipated events of the European cultural calendar.
Shostakovich's 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and was blacklisted just days after the communist leader saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.
The Italian liberal party +Europa announced a demonstration outside the theater as dignitaries arrive “to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by Putin’s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.’’
The party underlined that Shostakovich's opera exposes the abuse of power and the role of personal resistance.
Due to security concerns, authorities moved the protest from the square facing La Scala, to another behind City Hall.
Chailly began working with Russian stage director Vasily Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the 2022 gala season premiere of the Russian opera “Boris Godunov,” which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia’s politicians from its culture.
But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture. The Ukrainian community did not announce any separate protests this year.
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth" at La Scala for just the fourth time “a must.’’
“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ Chailly told a news conference last month.
La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov " at the theater best known for its Italian repertoire, but which has in recent years showcased other traditions.
‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the press conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin's own.’’
American soprano Sara Jakubiak is making her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she dies. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich's Katerina is full of challenges.
“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.
“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,'' she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.''
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony.
Barkhatov, who has a flourishing international career, called the choice of “Lady Macbeth,” “very brave and exciting.”
Barkhatov's stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.
For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place.
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’
“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.
Stage director Vasily Barkhatov sits during an interview with The Associated Press prior to the dressed rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
External view of Teatro all Scala ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Soprano Sara Jakubiak has her makeup done ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
The stage is prepared ahead of the dressed rehearsal of the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Dmitri Shostakovich, at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
