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Days after hitting the market, the new pill version of Novo Nordisk’s wildly popular weight-loss drug will be available through Amazons online pharmacy. Amazon joins telehealth providers, discount prescription stalwart GoodRx, and even Novo Nordisk itself in providing the novel weight-management drug for consumers who want to pay out of pocket. With the introduction of the oral version of Wegovy, the weight-loss drugs that have taken the world by storm will become even more accessibleand more readily available for anyone who can pay out of pocket. The oral version of Wegovy will start at $149 a month out of pocket through Amazon Pharmacy, and will cost $25 a month with eligible insurance coverage. The 1.5-milligram and 4-milligram starter doses of Wegovy are priced at $149 per month, with the higher doses that many people move up to priced around $299. We know there are people who are interested in addressing their weight but have been waiting on the sidelines for a medicine that was right for them, Novo Nordisk marketing and patient solutions SVP Ed Cinca said in a press release. For many of them, that wait is over. Rivals race to market with a weight-loss pill The two companies that introduced the world to the GLP-1 diabetes and weight-loss drugs semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) in injectionable form have been racing to market with a pill version of their hit drugs. Late last month, Novo Nordisk secured Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval first, beating its rival drugmaker Eli Lilly, which expects its own drug to get the green light in March. The Danish drugmaker was also first to market with the injectable version of its weight-loss drug Wegovy, but it struggled on the production side when a massive wave of demand outstripped supply. That dynamic allowed Eli Lilly to gain ground with its own weight-management drug, Zepbound, and pushed the American drugmakers stock to new heights. In November, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly announced a deal with the Trump administration to make their upcoming weight-loss pills available for $149 out of pocket. Under the terms of the deal, part of the White Houses wider negotiation on drug prices, both companies will be exempt from tariffs on pharmaceutical products for three years. Beyond Amazon Pharmacy, Novos weight-loss pill will also be coming to TrumpRx, the Trump administrations upcoming portal that will connect consumers with drugmakers to lower prices. For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices anywhere in the world for prescription drugsmuch more than other countries for the exact same product, Trump said in a quote featured on the TrumpRx placeholder site. That ends today. TrumpRx is expected to launch in early 2026. Dr. Amazon will see you now If youre confused that Amazon is suddenly a healthcare provider, youre probably not alone. The company best known for its sprawling online storefront and ubiquitous delivery trucks jumped into the prescription drug business in 2020 when it launched its own online pharmacy, which grew out of a previous acquisition of a company called PillPack. In 2022, Amazon expanded its health ambitions by buying subscription-based primary care and telehealth provider One Medical for $3.9 billion. Last month, the tech giant launched a network of drug-vending kiosks, bringing its signature robotic touch to the pharmacy. The drug vending machines, located in some One Medical offices, are a no-footprint answer to major store closures from longtime drugstore companies like Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS. With widespread patient-initiated telehealth and cheaper weight-loss drugs popping out of vending machines, the future of medicine is, for better or worse, looking a lot more like the future in 2026.
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E-Commerce
As President Trump takes even more steps to pull back on climate action, Bill Gates is emphasizing how crucial government policies are crucial to addressing climate change. In his annual year-ahead letter, the billionaire Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist warns that the market alone is not enough to change our climate reality. Without a large global carbon tax (which is, unfortunately, politically unachievable), market forces do not properly incentivize the creation of technologies to reduce climate-related emissions, Gates writes. To stop global temperatures from increasing, we need to replace all emissions-emitting activities with affordable alternatives, Gates says. He particularly calls out industrial emissions and aviation as areas that need innovation. And government policiesin rich countries, he notesare crucial to bringing about that innovation, because unless innovations reach scale, the costs wont come down and we wont achieve the impact we need. Climate change is linked to poverty and health Gatess annual letter comes just a few months after he wrote a blog arguing that the world is too focused on cutting short-term emissions, and that focusing on climate change risks getting in the way of addressing global poverty. That post sparked some backlash from environmental activists and experts who noted that climate and development goals are interconnected. If you look around the world right now, climate change is directly undermining human development goals, poverty eradication, and health goals, Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Fast Company back in October. In his annual letter, Gates said that, If we dont limit climate change, it will join poverty and infectious disease in causing enormous suffering, especially for the worlds poorest people. Climate change will also worsen both those hardships: Experts have long said that climate change exacerbates disease outbreaks and pandemics, and that it is expected to push up to 132 million people into extreme poverty by 2030. ‘Investing more than ever to climate work’ In his October post, Gates said that although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, the biggest problems to poor people are poverty and disease. Understanding this, he wrote, will let us focus our limited resources on interventions that will have the greatest impact for the most vulnerable people. In his year-ahead letter, though, Gates emphasized climate change as a critical area for the world to focus on. He added that he will be investing and giving more than ever to climate work in the years ahead while also continuing to give more to childrens health. Some of his investments around climate change will use AI. His foundation has committed $1.4 billion to helping farmers adapt to climate extremes, and in his annual letter, he says that with AI, we will soon be able to provide poor farmers with better advice about weather, prices, crop diseases, and soil than even the richest farmers get today. How Trump has devastated climate action The Trump administration has taken multiple steps to inhibit America’s climate progress. Most recently, Trump pulled the country out of a a landmark climate treaty, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Trump has also canceled billions in green energy projects, rolled back Biden-era government incentives for clean technologies, and cut hundreds of millions of dollars from climate and renewable energy research. At the same time, Trump has rapidly increased the governments support of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, opening new mining leases, loosening coal plant emissions standards, and forcing coal plants that were going to close to keep operating. Trumps actions have devastated multiple climate companies. Even Gatess own climate actions faced a challenging 2025: In March, Breakthrough Energy, a climate group Gates started 10 years ago, laid off dozens in its U.S. and Europe policy teams. But Gates will continue to put billions into climate innovation, he writeswhile also focusing on health and education. And all three of those areas, he notes, can improve rapidly with the right government focus.
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E-Commerce
General Motors will be hit with charges of about $6 billion as sales of electric vehicles sputter after the U.S. cut tax incentives to buy them and also eased auto emissions standards. Shares slid almost 3% Friday. The charges that will be recorded in the fourth quarter follow an announcement in October that the Detroit automaker would take a $1.6 billion charge for the same reason in the previous quarter, with automakers forced to reconsider ambitious plans to convert their fleets to electric power. The EV tax credit ended in September. The clean vehicle tax credit was worth $7,500 for new EVs and up to $4,000 for used ones. GM, which had been the most ambitious among all U.S. automakers with plans to replace internal combustion engines, said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday that the $6 billion in charges includes non-cash impairments and other non-cash charges of about $1.8 billion as well as supplier commercial settlements, contract cancellation fees, and other charges of approximately $4.2 billion. EVs have been considered to be the future of the US automotive industry. GM announced in 2020 that it was going to invest $27 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles over the next five years, a 35% increase over plans made before the pandemic. GM expected more than half of its factories in North America and China would be capable of making electric vehicles by 2030. It also pledged at the time to increase its investment in EV charging networks by nearly $750 million through 2025. Its goal was to make the vast majority of the vehicles electric by 2035, and the entire company carbon neutral five years after that. Those plans have been shaken due to the drastic differences in economic and environmental policies between the Biden and Trump administrations. China has become a global leader in electric vehicle technology in recent years, with factories there churning out millions of cars and laying the groundwork for a massive charging network for vehicles. Earlier this month, Tesla was dethroned as the world’s largest EV automaker, replaced by China’s BYD, which produced 2.26 million electric vehicles last year. Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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