The Biden administration said Medicare will negotiate discounts with drug companies on 15 drugs prescribed to treat cancer, diabetes and asthma.

WASHINGTON — Medicare officials announced plans to negotiate the prices of blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, further complicating big decisions the Trump administration will have to make about how to cover the medications.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra says “this is a big deal.” Drug companies oppose the program.

The Biden administration moved Friday to negotiate the prices Medicare pays for the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, medications costing the massive government health program billions of dollars a year.

Eli Lilly and other drugmakers are reportedly planning to urge the Trump administration to pause Medicare drug-price negotiations that were put in place by the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). "They need to fix [the IRA]," Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks told Bloomberg at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

On its last weekday in power, the Biden Administration has chosen the next batch of drugs up for price negotiation in Medicare.

Novo Nordisk's blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss treatment Wegovy are among the 15 drugs targeted for Medicare price negotiations for 2027, the U.S. government said on Friday, part of a law pharmaceutical companies have pledged to revisit with the Trump administration.