November 2025 Healthcare Roundup: Washington. Wegovy. Wearables

November belonged to the GLP-1s. From the Oval Office to telehealth landing pages, America’s weight-loss drugs became the axis around which policy, pricing, and digital health revolved. President Trump’s “historic” price cuts pulled pharma into political theatre, while cash-pay platforms like GoodRx, Hims & Hers, and Omada turned access itself into the product. The result: a healthcare system being re-engineered in real time—one where the real innovation lies not in the medicine, but in the infrastructure that delivers it. And just as these new rails are being laid for virtual care, wearables like Lumia’s smart earrings are quietly redefining where the body meets the data stream. 

The GLP-1 Revolution: From Washington to Your Phone

November 7 – President Trump unveiled sweeping new drug-pricing agreements with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, slashing list prices for the country’s most expensive chronic-disease drugs. Under the TrumpRx program, Ozempic and Wegovy fell from four-figure monthly prices to $350, while Zepbound and Orforglipron settled near $346. Common insulins like NovoLog and Tresiba dropped to $35 a month.
Medicare will now cover obesity indications for the first time, with beneficiaries paying $50 monthly and states gaining Most-Favoured-Nation pricing parity through Medicaid.

The administration framed it as both public-health and trade policy—an attempt to reverse an obesity epidemic while “rebalancing” a system where five percent of the world’s population generates three-quarters of its pharmaceutical profit. Lilly and Novo sweetened the optics with $37 billion in new U.S. manufacturing investments.

Why it matters: The announcement marks the federal government’s most aggressive intervention in drug pricing since the Inflation Reduction Act. But its ripple effect is felt far beyond Washington. The promise of $350 GLP-1s lit up the private market overnight, triggering copycat models and cash-pay alternatives that look less like pharma distribution and more like consumer commerce.

Platforms in Pursuit

Just days before and after the White House event, three major digital-health players pivoted to grab their share of the same opportunity.

GoodRx launched a new telemedicine program offering Ozempic and Wegovy at $199 a month for first-time users, then $349 thereafter, wrapped in a $39-to-$119 subscription. The company positioned it as a transparent, self-pay gateway for consumers tired of insurer rejections and prior-authorisation hurdles.

Hims & Hers, still riding pandemic-era telehealth momentum, disclosed active talks with Novo Nordisk to distribute Wegovy injections and the coming oral obesity pill directly through its platform. If it closes, the deal would give Hims something every telehealth startup wants: exclusive supply and brand adjacency to the world’s hottest drug class.

Meanwhile, Omada Health, one of digital health’s more mature players, announced plans to begin prescribing GLP-1s in 2026, integrating medication management into its long-standing behavioural and coaching programs for metabolic conditions. It’s a different bet—enterprise rather than consumer, payer-aligned rather than cash-pay—but it signals the same convergence: therapy and technology under one subscription.

The Bigger Picture

Together, these moves signal the commoditisation of GLP-1 access—and the beginnings of a tug-of-war between federal price controls, telehealth arbitrage, and traditional insurers. TrumpRx is setting a benchmark price; the private sector is racing to match it with convenience and UX polish.
It’s not lost on anyone that the biggest innovations in weight-loss medicine right now aren’t new molecules but new distribution channels.

The opportunity is massive. Goldman estimates the global GLP-1 market could exceed $130 billion by 2030, but U.S. uptake has been throttled by cost and coverage restrictions. By flipping those variables—government-mandated discounts on one end, cash-pay tele-platforms on the other—2025 is shaping up as the year GLP-1s moved from elite medicine to mass-market consumer products.

The open questions:

• Can manufacturers maintain supply as both government and private players push prices downward?
  
  

• How will payers react if self-pay GLP-1s become the default for patients bypassing insurance entirely?
  
  

• And what happens when every telehealth app sells the same molecule at near-identical prices—does differentiation come from care quality, or from loyalty programs?
  
  

For all the politics and pricing theatrics, one fact stands out: the conversation around obesity drugs has migrated from endocrinology journals to presidential podiums and lifestyle apps. The molecules didn’t change. The infrastructure did.

Lumia Raises $7 Million and Launches Smart Earrings for Blood-Flow Tracking

November 19 – Boston-based Lumia has secured $7 million in fresh funding (with another $5.1 million in contracts/grants) to launch the Lumia 2 — sub-1-gram smart earrings that monitor blood flow, sleep, temperature, readiness and menstrual cycles via optical sensors positioned at the ear. The product is designed to clip onto existing earrings or wear as a cuff, targeting U.S. and Canadian launches.

Why it matters:
There is a concrete trend in leveraging traditionally worn fashion items as another portal for physiological sensing. Research shows that in-ear photoplethysmography (PPG) has improved signal stability compared to wrist sites and can capture heart rate, HRV, respiration and vascular metrics under real-world conditions. The ear sits closer to major cranial vessels, so measuring blood-flow changes there may yield insights into autonomic dysfunction, orthostatic intolerance or “brain fog” precursors that wrist wearables struggle with. Lumia’s device is ambitious: it is betting on the ear as the new health perimeter, combining form-factor innovation with advanced sensing.

That said, major caveats remain. The device is not FDA-cleared and still resides in the wellness category; the step from capturing refined signals to delivering actionable health insight is substantial. Success will depend heavily on whether the platform retains users, links meaningfully to health outcomes, and differentiates from rings and watches racing to the same sensors. For now, Lumia’s fundraising and form-factor bet mark a compelling signal in the evolution of wearable health.