President Donald Trump's new European tariffs may spell bad news for Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy.
As Axios reports, the 15 percent tariffs he's levying on goods imported into the United States from the European Union are likely to drive up already-expensive drug prices for the blockbuster weight loss jabs, which can already cost more than $1,300 per month's supply without insurance.
Slated to go into effect on August 7, this new agreement doesn't just target pharmaceuticals. Still, in scary letters sent to drugmakers on both sides of the pond, the American president also threatened to levy higher taxes on "freeloading" pharma companies if they don't proactively cut a deal with the White House to lower their drug prices.
With that 60-day deadline giving Novo time to bend the knee, it will be a few months before we know how much more expensive its popular injectables might become. Still, the Ozempic manufacturer's stock has already suffered from the tariff news — and with its months-long downward value trajectory, the company can't really afford to lose any more money.
The Danish drugmaker's stock fell below $50 per share in the wake of the EU trade deal announcement earlier in the week. As Reuters notes, Novo is now ever closer to erasing the gains it got from Wegovy, the weight loss-specific version of the drug, that saw share prices soar up to nearly $150 per share last summer.
While the new EU tariffs and the threat of more to come are already hurting Novo's bottom line, the long-running American pharma company Eli Lilly, which makes competitor injectables Mounjaro and Zepbound, is faring much better despite also being targeted by Trump.
Though it experienced a small share value dropoff in the wake of the news, reflecting the financial anxiety of the tariff news across industries, Lilly is still beating out Novo in the court of public opinion thanks to headlines about its reportedly strong second-quarter earnings and a new study suggesting Mounjaro may have protective heart health benefits.
Though both companies are more than 100 years old and hold diverse medication portfolios outside of their buzzy weight loss jabs, Lilly seems far more likely to weather this latest financial storm on the sheer credential of being American in a protectionist economy. Despite Ozempic having become a Xerox-style catch-all for GLP-1s writ large, Novo nevertheless looks poised to take the brunt of Trump's foolhardy tariffs.
More on Ozempic's finances: Something Comically Bad Just Happened to the Inventor of Ozempic