President Donald Trump has long bantered about GLP-1s, the breakthrough medicines that have changed care for diabetes and obesity. Sometimes he calls them “the fat drug.” In an interview with the The New York Times in January, he mused that “I probably should” take them.
A few days before the Times published that story, Trump invested in Eli Lilly, the nearly $1 trillion drugmaker whose fortunes are closely tied to its blockbuster GLP-1s, Zepbound and Foundayo — and to government reimbursement for the medicines.
This week we reported on several Lilly stock purchases made by Trump or his brokers from January to March, totaling as much as $680,000, according to a disclosure signed by the president. He also purchased stock worth $250,000 to $500,000 in West Pharmaceutical Services, a company that manufactures devices for injectable drugs. It, too, is benefiting from the GLP-1 surge.
As the purchases occurred, the Trump administration was undertaking an agenda that boosted the GLP-1 market, including advancing Medicare reimbursement for the drugs to treat obesity, a long-held goal for Lilly. The deadline for drug manufacturers to get involved in a reimbursement project was Jan. 8.
The administration also intensified a crackdown on “compounded” GLP-1s — cheaper, copycat medications made by pharmacies that critics (and brand-name drugmakers) claim are unsafe. That knocked out competitors to Lilly’s products. Trump’s FDA also rapidly approved Lilly’s GLP-1 pill, Foundayo.
