America is sick. Just look at our diabetes and obesity rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that approximately 38.4 million adults in the United States had diabetes in 2021. That’s 11.6 percent of our population. Obesity rates are even worse. The CDC marked the U.S.’s obesity rate at 40.3 percent from 2021 to 2023.
That’s unacceptable, and why the president’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda is welcomed and a needed policy priority. Spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the MAHA movement “aims to improve nutrition, eliminate toxins, preserve natural habitats, and fight the chronic disease epidemic in this country.”
And the president is practicing what MAHA preaches. The same day Kennedy was sworn into office as secretary of health and human services, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that established his MAHA Commission.
Even with the positive change in direction, the MAHA movement has a problem standing in its way: Big Pharma.
Shamelessly, large pharmaceutical companies are seizing our growing diabetes and obesity crises as an opportunity to cash in on American patients. How? They are attempting to manipulate the production of semaglutide—the primary ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy—likely because of the undeniable pecuniary success European Big Pharma companies, like Novo Nordisk, are seeing from those sales. Indeed, Ozempic sales in the U.S. were roughly $13.9 billion in 2023. Novo Nordisk itself reported that it experienced an increase of 52 percent in GLP-1 diabetes sales and a 154 percent rise in obesity care sales, largely credited to Ozempic and Wegovy’s distribution.
Trump is well aware of Big Pharma’s impressive lobby and had gone toe-to-toe with them in his first term. The president astutely recognized that “Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists, and a lot of power.” He even admonished them and said they “should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason. They are merely taking advantage of the poor and others unable to defend themselves, while at the same time giving bargain basement prices to other countries in Europe and elsewhere.”
But Big Pharma’s efforts fell flat.
The Trump administration initiated investigations into Big Pharma’s ability to manipulate prices in his first term. Trump’s Department of Justice investigated several pharmaceutical companies for conspiring to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers. Also, in 2020, the Trump administration’s actions led to several settlements and deferred prosecution agreements, which even allowed the Biden administration to exact financial penalties based off of these investigations.
Under that backdrop, it is unfathomable why a Biden holdover in the FDA would undermine this bipartisan effort. But, alas, that’s precisely what occurred when the FDA announced the resolution of the semaglutide injection shortage.
This action makes Novo Nordisk the sole producer of the necessary ingredient to make these life-saving drugs.
Let’s unpack this.
Initially, the FDA added semaglutide injection products to its drug shortage list in March 2022. The designation means compounding pharmacies—pharmacies that specialize in creating custom, not commercially available medications based on individual patient needs—to produce and dispense compounded versions of semaglutide under the FDA’s regulatory allowances during drug shortages. The designation introduced new competition into the market and, ultimately, affordable options for low-income patients.
However, a little over a month before Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary took the helm, the FDA retracted its designation. The practical effect of that was those compounding pharmacies can no longer offer patients more accessible and affordable alternatives to these essential drugs. This is terrible for consumers who now must rely on Novo Nordisk’s supply chain only and, by extension, its prices for these necessary drugs.
Given its sales, high cost, and the high-end clientele it is clearly marketing its drugs towards, can we really expect Novo Nordisk to make their medication more available to a mother of three over an aspiring Kardashian?
Remember, irrespective of how many TikTok influencers and celebrities are on them, Ozempic and Wegovy are not designer drugs. They play an important role in managing our ongoing diabetes and obesity crises. Thus, we can’t be overly reliant on one company’s supply chain, especially one that isn’t even American. One easy way of doing that is to reinstate certain allowances for compounding pharmacies under specific conditions to better ensure consumer choice and competitive pricing. But all options should be on the table.
Moving forward, the Trump administration must stay vigilant of Big Pharma’s perfidious tactics that serve only to harness the control over our medicine for the MAHA agenda to be realized fully.
