FOX Enterprise’ Lydia Hu stories on the most recent information rising from the pharmaceutical trade because the U.S.’ treatment scarcity reaches a brand new file.
“One thing is rotten within the state of Denmark,” as Hamlet mentioned in Shakespeare’s time. It was true then, and it’s true at the moment.
Whereas Senate Democrats are holding our authorities hostage to their ridiculous shutdown to allow them to present free healthcare to unlawful aliens, federal companies are going unfulfilled. One international firm is making an attempt to take advantage of this to maintain its income as fats as potential.
Novo Nordisk, a biotech firm based mostly in Denmark, is trying to intervene within the American pharmaceutical market to suppress competitors, defend its dominant market place, and cease a weight-loss drug competitor from coming into the market.
WEIGHT LOSS COULD BE JUST A PILL AWAY, STUDY OF NEW MEDICATION SUGGESTS
Novo, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, has a major market share within the GLP1 drug house, which has revolutionized the medical remedy of weight problems. Given the devastating issues of obesity-related diseases, it is a big trade, with the potential for each billions in income and the chance to assist many Individuals. Not too long ago, Novo introduced it was making a play to accumulate New York Metropolis-based Metsera, which has a doubtlessly breakthrough weight-loss drug in its pipeline.
Injection pens for the weight-loss remedy Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk A/S, on show throughout a information convention in Mumbai, India, on June 24, 2025. (Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg through / Getty Photos)
Novo already holds a dominant market share of the medical weight reduction market. If the corporate have been to accumulate Metsera, its place would change into even stronger. This implies much less competitors, considerably larger costs, much less entry, elevated weight problems and poorer well being.
Furthermore, such an acquisition requires federal scrutiny. First, as a result of antitrust considerations, the Federal Commerce Fee should assessment this deal. President Donald Trump’s all-star FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has served as a guardian of healthcare competitors throughout America. Furthermore, as a result of Novo is a international firm, the Committee on Overseas Funding in america (CFIUS) might have to take motion.
COULD GLP-1 WEIGHT-LOSS MEDICATIONS LIKE OZEMPIC BECOME THE ‘EVERYTHING DRUG’?
Given the present authorities shutdown, Novo might have deliberate this to keep away from applicable regulatory scrutiny in an unprecedented and doubtlessly unlawful transfer.
Novo’s shady technique is to make an early fee for Metsera shares. That will successfully give Novo financial management of Metsera and undue affect on the corporate earlier than the transaction even undergoes regulatory assessment. Whereas a Danish firm shopping for an American one doesn’t essentially symbolize an apparent risk to nationwide safety, allowing Novo to accumulate a promising U.S.-based biotech firm might result in American job losses and income getting despatched overseas.
Authorities entities just like the FTC and CFIUS exist to observe this sort of enterprise exercise for superb causes – which they might be capable of do if it weren’t for the Senate Democrats’ month-long authorities shutdown. Till Senate Democrats finish this hostage scenario, so the federal authorities can do its due diligence, such a deal shouldn’t undergo.
Nonetheless lifetime of the large three injectable prescription weight reduction medicines. Ozempic, Victoza and Wegovy. (Michael Siluk/UCG/Common Photos Group through / Getty Photos)
Moreover,Novo has demonstrated a scarcity of fine religion with President Trump’s voter-mandated shift within the path of the nation. President Trump has made it a precedence to extend healthcare competitors and decrease drug costs for each American, however particularly those that can least afford it. Ferguson is main the cost to make sure our healthcare markets ship truthful costs and higher outcomes for sufferers and different shoppers. When President Trump introduced his most favored nation (MFN) government order to deliver down drug costs, fortunately, many American pharmaceutical firms answered the decision.
This deal exemplifies the significance of President Trump’s America First focus with worldwide enterprise. This isn’t jingoism or nationalism or any of the opposite -isms the president’s enemies wish to throw at us. America First doesn’t imply America solely. It means if a deal is dangerous for us, we should always not do it. That is simply primary logic.
Novo is taking part in video games with the unsuitable administration. President Trump and Chairman Ferguson shouldn’t stand by whereas a international firm makes an attempt to bypass our authorities’s obligatory antitrust oversight, actually not when it includes seizing management of an important class of latest medicines. If Novo strikes ahead with its bid for Metsera, it ought to rightly entice a variety of consideration from Ferguson, President Trump’s healthcare competitors watchdog and champion.