October 2025 Healthcare Roundup: TrumpRx Goes Direct, Oura Goes More Global, and NVIDIA Goes Superhuman

October 1 – The TrumpRx initiative launched by the Donald Trump administration marks a dramatic re-think of how prescription drugs are priced and distributed in the U.S. In the opening move, Pfizer agreed to provide its entire U.S. portfolio to Medicaid at “most-favoured-nation” (MFN) pricing and offer steep discounts to cash-paying consumers via the TrumpRx portal. Several days later, AstraZeneca became the second major drugmaker to strike such a deal, committing to MFN pricing, direct-to-consumer sales and large U.S. manufacturing investments.

Why it matters:
This deal represents a structural shift in the architecture of U.S. drug pricing. First, the MFN model ties U.S. patient prices to the lowest rates paid by other wealthy nations rather than letting domestic prices float free. Pfizer’s agreement suggests discounts up to 85 % and averaging 50 % on select treatments. Second, the TrumpRx platform introduces the notion of manufacturers selling directly to consumers, bypassing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), insurance networks and usual distribution channels. Direct-to-consumer strategies aren’t new to healthcare, yet this feels like one of the most consequential applications of the model by major pharma.  

From a business model standpoint, the deal is less about generosity than leverage—the White House is shelving its 100 % import tariffs for three years if companies commit to domestic investment and lower consumer prices. For health systems, the immediate gain is Medicaid cost relief; the longer-term question is how commercial markets and private payers will respond if list prices remain high but cash-pay options proliferate.

There are risks too. Manufacturers may selectively hand out steep discounts via TrumpRx only for cash-pay consumers, while leaving commercial-insured segments unchanged. The logistics of direct fulfilment at scale are untested. Critically, the enforcement of MFN pricing—especially what “new launches” must cost, and how rebates or net-price math counts—has major unknowns.

In short, this is a bold bet: if direct sales + MFN commitments scale, the distribution and pricing model of U.S. pharmaceuticals may be entering a new chapter. That bet is already being tested, with the administration announcing new TrumpRx deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, cutting Ozempic and Wegovy to $350 a month and insulin to $35 a month, while extending MFN pricing to Medicare and Medicaid. Whether these historic price drops prove sustainable, or just politically timed, will determine if TrumpRx becomes a genuine overhaul or a headline-driven experiment.

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Oura Hits $11 B Valuation, Becomes Europe’s First Health-Tracking “Decacorn”

October 15 – Finnish wearables company Oura raised roughly $900 million in a Series E funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, bringing its valuation to about $11 billion—more than double its ~$5 billion value just months ago. With over 5.5 million rings sold and revenue topping $500 million in 2024 (with expectations to hit $1 billion in 2025), Oura is positioning itself as the lead in “preventive health platforms”.

Why it matters:
This deal represents a fundamental revaluation of how wearables are being valued and deployed – moving from gadgets that track steps and sleep into platforms selling recurring health insights and data-driven interventions. The company is firmly putting their bet on health data and subscription revenue, rather than relying on hardware margins. The company’s new “Health Panels” feature—offering over 50 blood biomarkers for around $99 and integrating lab results with ring data—is a clear signal they’re building toward holistic health management, not just fitness tracking.

From a business model standpoint, Oura is leaning into the subscription + data moat play: the hardware gets you in, the ongoing membership feeds the data engine, and the insights become the sticky piece. But there’s a trade-off: rival offerings like Samsung’s Galaxy Ring avoids a mandatory subscription, making it a compelling alternative for cost-sensitive wearers.

On the clinical/impact side, Oura is doing interesting things. By expanding into women’s health, they are helping users track ovulation and pregnancy insights—underserved areas in wearables. However, there is also cautionary commentary on smart wearables worth knowing—they can embed users more deeply in data-feedback loops that reinforce self-surveillance and lean into “quantified body” cultures rather than purely clinical benefit.

The strategic question is whether Oura can convert its early hardware lead into a defensible platform. The market threat is real: Apple, Garmin, Samsung and others are circling, and the “wearables + health insight” play is becoming crowded. Oura’s appeal will depend on retention, meaningful outcomes (not just readiness/love-to-track), and whether its data-rich model can deliver value beyond novelty.

NVIDIA Hits $5 Trillion Valuation, Partners with Eli Lilly to Build an AI Supercomputer for Drug Discovery

October 30 – NVIDIA reached a record $5 trillion market capitalization and marked the occasion with a partnership that could reshape how drugs are made. Together with Eli Lilly, the company is building what both call the most powerful supercomputer in pharmaceutical history—a 1,000-GPU Blackwell-based “AI factory” that will train and deploy models on millions of simulated experiments to identify new molecules, accelerate clinical development, and power precision-medicine programs. 

Why it matters:
This partnership exemplifies the industrialization of pharmaceutical AI. NVIDIA’s framing of “AI factories” isn’t metaphor—it’s literal infrastructure for science. Lilly’s system will run on renewable power, cooled by chilled-water loops and built to ingest the company’s billion-dollar proprietary data trove. Think less about a single drug and more about turning discovery itself into a programmable process. As Kimberly Powell of NVIDIA described it: “AI factories are the new scientific instruments.”

The near-term payoff will be modest in the short term, with Lilly executives admitting real drug breakthroughs may not emerge until the end of the decade. However, the long-term ambition is profound: automation of not only hypothesis generation but the experimental validation cycle itself. The system also extends to manufacturing via digital twins and robotic optimization, effectively merging R&D and production inside one AI-native loop.

There’s an unmistakable geopolitical undertone here too. NVIDIA’s rise to $5 trillion coincides with the U.S. government’s broader Project Stargate, a $500 billion plan to build AI data centers nationwide with Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank. The Lilly-NVIDIA collaboration slots neatly into that vision - American industrial power refocused on biotech computation. Yet it also intensifies a new digital-pharma dependency: whoever controls the chips, controls the science.

Critics note that no AI-discovered drug has yet reached the market, despite billions poured into in-silico lab efforts. Still, the boundary between tech and biotech is dissolving fast—AI companies aren’t just supplying the tools; they’re running the experiments. The scientists have company now. Make room, folks.