Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News Eli Lilly ( NYSE: LLY ) and Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) traded lower in the premarket on Tuesday after President Joe Biden urged the pharma giants to substantially reduce the prices of their products, including their popular anti-obesity medications. In an opinion column published in USA Today , President Biden with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) specifically pointed to Lilly ( LLY ) and Novo ( NVO ) as examples of big pharma "ripping off the American people.
" Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), is a long-time critic of Novo ( NVO ) over its pricing strategy for its blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. "And it's not just Novo Nordisk. Eli Lilly also is charging unconscionably high prices for Mounjaro, a drug with similar health effects as Ozempic," the duo said, referring to the GLP-1 drugs, which are popularly used for weight loss in addition to diabetes.
"If the prices of these drugs are not substantially reduced, they have the potential to bankrupt the American health care system," Biden and Sanders said. "We will not allow that to happen," they added. The politicians didn't spare their rivals.
"If Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies refuse to substantially lower prescription drug prices in our country and end their greed, we will do everything within our power to end it for them," they wrote. VanEck Vectors Pharmaceutical ETF ( PPH ), which represents 25 of the world's maj.
