FOIAengine: How Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Others Use FOIA
Welcome to 2025. At PoliScio Analytics, we logged 45,720 federal FOIA requests into our FOIAengine database during the past 12 months. But one subject, more than most others, dominated in hundreds of requests from hedge funds, pharmaceutical companies, and the news media: GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
This week, we’re taking a closer look at what some of those GLP-1 requesters wanted to know during the past year. We last covered the weight-loss revolution when it was just getting started. (See our May 3, 2023 story, “Riding the Ozempic Wave.”) Since then, there’s been a surge in weight-loss FOIA requests, as seen clearly in FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows. It’s a function not just of the off-the-chart demand for the GLP-1 drugs, but also the high-stakes economic, legal, and public-relations battles being waged by their makers, U.S.-based Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Denmark’s Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO).
Lilly’s GLP-1 products include Zepbound, Mounjaro, and Trulicity. Novo Nordisk’s competing products include Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, and Saxenda. Their sudden appeal caused a roller-coaster run in the stock price of both companies. But the drugs’ popularity came with a double edge. Lilly and Novo Nordisk were transformed into punching bags in Congress because of their discrepant pricing practices – the drugs are often far less expensive outside of the U.S. Ozempic can cost more than nine times in the U.S. what it does in Germany, where it retails for $59. Wegovy can be more than 4.5 times more expensive in the U.S. than it is in Denmark, where it is available for just $186.
Last fall, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), then-chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Education, called in Novo Nordisk’s CEO to testify about the price discrepancies, he titled the hearing, “Why Is Novo Nordisk Charging Americans with Diabetes and Obesity Outrageously High Prices for Ozempic and Wegovy?”
And both companies now are litigation targets, with at least 188 cases filed against Novo Nordisk and 108 cases against Lilly, according to Docket Alarm. In addition, the popular GLP-1 products made by both companies have been lumped into a sprawling consolidated federal multidistrict litigation case in Philadelphia. At last count, there were at least 1,331 additional plaintiffs in the MDL litigation – with plaintiffs lawyers trolling for more.
FOIA requests to the federal government often are signals. They can be an important early warning of bad publicity, litigation to come, or uncertainties to be hedged and gamed out. When the flow of requests turns into a flood, it is most likely a sign of all three – take your pick.
The highlights below, illustrative of requests by, and about, Lilly and Novo Nordisk last year, illustrate the multiple uses of FOIA. All requests are from FOIAengine, as logged during the past 12 months.
- FOIA as competitive intelligence: Lilly filed far more FOIA requests with the Food and Drug Administration than its competitor, Novo Nordisk. And on occasion, Lilly’s requests sought information about its chief competitor, a common occurrence in the world of competitive intelligence.
Among the examples: After FDA inspectors listed eight problematic “observations” at one of Novo Nordisk’s Danish plants, Lilly took note of the unfavorable report and filed multiple requests with the FDA, the most recent on November 4, seeking more information. And last March, after the FDA approved a new use for Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy – this time, as a treatment to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke in overweight adults with cardiovascular disease – Lilly was quick to file a FOIA request with the FDA for Wegovy’s new-drug-application “review package.” In each case, the FDA didn’t specify the requester’s name, and also didn’t indicate whether any documents were handed over.
Novo Nordisk didn’t make any requests about its competitor, Lilly, but that doesn’t mean the company wasn’t watching. Third-party requests about both companies were prevalent, and any of those could have been made on behalf of any of the Big Pharma players.
- FOIA as a precursor (or supplement) to litigation: Not surprisingly, given the burst in litigation against Lilly and Novo Nordisk, there were numerous law firm FOIA requests about both companies. Among the examples: Last July, Baker & Hostetler sought “all electronic communications that the FDA (including, but not limited to, FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has received from Novo Nordisk, (or any person acting on its behalf), Eli Lilly (or any person acting on its behalf), or Julie Dohm from July 1, 2022 to July 15, 2024 involving compounding of semaglutide or tirzepatide.”
The request about “compounding” was noteworthy. Dohm is a partner at Covington & Burling, which represents Novo Nordisk. Before joining Covington in 2019, she was the FDA official responsible for regulating compounding pharmacies. The FDA log didn’t indicate Baker & Hostetler’s interest. But compounders, including wellness centers and medical spas, have been fighting to continue selling off-brand versions of the GLP-1 products – because, they argue, Lilly and Novo Nordisk are unable to keep up with demand. Whether the compounders can keep doing that is also a matter of ongoing litigation.
- FOIA as an indication of (often negative) publicity to come: An average of one in every five of the hundreds of requests about Lilly or Novo Nordisk came from the news media. Such requests ran the gamut. Reuters sought every problematic FDA inspection of Lilly’s manufacturing facilities covering the first three months of 2024. The New York Times made a detailed request for, among other things, “all correspondence – including reports, emails, or memoranda – between FDA agency staff and Eli Lilly personnel regarding its [Alzheimer’s] drug, donanemab, that contain any of the following case-insensitive key-words: brain atrophy, or brain shrinkage, or brain volume” – a rare media request targeting Lilly that wasn’t about GLP-1 drugs. Two months ago, on the heels of an earlier Lilly request, Reuters also sought full details about the FDA’s problematic inspection of Nono Nordisk’s Danish plant.
Last October 31, Bloomberg, which accounted for the most media requests about the two companies, sought “disclosure of the following records: correspondence between employees of or representatives (attorneys, lobbyists, etc.) of Eli Lilly and the FDA Commissioner, or anyone else working in the Immediate Office of the Commissioner office, on the topic of the shortage of tirzepatide injection, dated between January 1, 2024 and the date this request is processed. I am requesting the entirety of the correspondence, including any attachments (including email attachments), exhibits, addendums, appendices, and anything else like that.” Other media requesters about Lilly and Novo Nordisk during the past year included Stat News, CNBC, CNN, and the Capitol Forum.
In 2025, we’ll be watching, and reporting, as FOIA requests continue to roll in.
FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism. IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists. Following the federal government’s shutdown of FOIAonline.gov last year, FOIAengine is the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across dozens of federal departments and agencies. FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities, and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide.
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Next: SBUX to go: The latest news media requests to the National Labor Relations Board.
John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist and publisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere. He is a four-time recipient of the American Bar Association’s Gavel Award Certificate of Merit for his legal reporting and analysis. His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist. Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013. Prior to that, he was President of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise of Congressional Quarterly. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer Randy Miller. Learn more about FOIAengine here. To review FOIA requests mentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.
Write to John A. Jenkins at JAJ@PoliScio.com.