Business 24 September 2026

Portugal spent over a million euros on Mounjaro in a single day. That is more than 3,000 pens

Consultancy HMR - Health Market Research says Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, the third time the one-million-euro mark has been hit since August.

Portugal had already crossed the one-million-euro mark for Mounjaro sales in a single day twice, back in August. It happened again this week. Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, according to consultancy HMR - Health Market Research, which tracks sales across more than 2,600 pharmacies and posted the figure on social media. It isn’t a one-off. It’s the third time since summer.

Nobody else is picking up the bill

Each box costs between 180 and 400 euros, depending on the weekly dose. Mounjaro isn’t reimbursed in Portugal, and it’s sold on prescription only. So this week’s million came straight out of patients’ pockets, at a moment when Portuguese households are already stretched elsewhere: mortgage payments keep climbing, and the state’s own accounts slipped back into deficit in the first half of the year.

From diabetes drug to best-seller

Tirzepatide, Mounjaro’s active ingredient, is approved in Europe for type 2 diabetes and for weight management in adults with obesity or overweight. It reached Portuguese pharmacies at the end of 2024 and has since become the country’s best-selling obesity drug, following the path Ozempic and Wegovy opened before it.

The yearly numbers were already pointing this way. Portugal sold more than 572,000 packs of obesity drugs in 2025, almost five times the year before (a 378% jump). In May, Infarmed data put average spending at around 613,000 euros a day in the first quarter, for Mounjaro and Wegovy combined. A single day of just one of those drugs now tops a million. That’s a peak, not an average, but it shows which way the curve is heading.

There’s no sign of a slowdown. Until weight-loss treatment gets any state support, the price stays exactly where it is, and going by this week’s numbers, Portuguese patients are still willing to pay it.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Tugadaily bar chart of Spain's fuel discount per litre: 20 cents in October, 13 in November and 6 in December

Business 29 September 2026

Spain puts its fuel discount back up to 20 cents for October, then steps it down to 6 by December

Spain's fuel discount was down to 5 cents and due to end in October. The cabinet raised it to 20 cents a litre off petrol and diesel in October, then 13 in November and 6 in December. In Portugal, diesel falls 5 cents this week and still sits above €2.15.

Spain's government approved a third decree on the Middle East crisis on Tuesday, and the part that matters at the pump is simple: the fuel discount, which had already shrunk to 5 cents in September and was due to disappear in October, goes back up to 20 cents a litre in October, then drops to 13 in November and to 6 in December. It covers both petrol and diesel, it works through a cut in the Hydrocarbon Tax (VAT is untouched), and the figures are in the…

Business 26 September 2026

Portugal's new fuel aid reaches every haulier. Earthmoving firms are still left out

Portugal's Council of Ministers approved compensation of up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs from October to December for hire-and-reward freight hauliers and public bus operators. Firms that carry their own loads are not covered.

If you haul freight for other companies or run public bus services in Portugal, there is more help on the way. Thursday's Council of Ministers approved a decree-law covering up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs incurred between October and December. It is meant to close a gap: doubts over the EU's de minimis state-aid rules had left some operators unsure whether they could receive the earlier packages at all.

Business 25 September 2026

Brussels wants insurers and pension funds backing European tech. Thirteen have already put their hands up

Banks, insurers and pension funds have signalled they will join a voluntary pact with the European Commission and the EIB Group to channel long-term institutional capital into Europe's growth-stage tech companies — the mechanism behind the 15-billion-euro target already promised.

Thirteen institutional investors — banks, pension funds and insurance companies — have signalled their intent to join a new voluntary pact launched this week by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, at the TechEU Equity Summit on 23 September. The goal: channel long-term institutional capital into the venture and growth-capital funds that Europe's tech companies need to scale up without having to go looking for money — and…

Business 25 September 2026

Hundreds of trucks crawled from Paredes to Coimbra in a protest over diesel prices

Police counted 380 heavy vehicles, organisers 450 from 117 companies. Five hours along the A42, A41 and A1, no incidents, over a litre of diesel that has risen 63 cents since February.

Hundreds of trucks, most of them from the earthmoving and public-works sector, staged a slow-motion protest on Friday from Lordelo, in Paredes, to the Coimbra Sul junction, along the A42, A41 and A1 motorways. The GNR police counted 380 heavy vehicles during the morning; organisers put it at 450 from 117 companies. The convoy set off at 7:40am and reached Coimbra around 12:30pm, five hours later, without incident, though traffic backed up as it arrived.…

Business 19 September 2026

Porto's ring road is shut to lorries by day (and the alternative is now toll-free)

The VCI restriction started on 15 September and covers goods vehicles over 3,500kg with three or more axles. Hauliers loading or unloading in Porto or Gaia can still use it — but only with the plate registered first.

Since 15 September, heavy goods vehicles have been barred from Porto's Via de Cintura Interna between seven in the morning and nine at night on weekdays. This is not a trial run with a soft launch. In the first 48 hours the PSP logged 27 offences, 22 on day one and five on day two, which suggests the message travelled fast. The ban applies to goods vehicles over 3,500kg gross weight with three or more axles and a height of at least 1.1 metres measured at…

Business 18 September 2026

Berkshire Hathaway makes Howard Buffett chairman as his father steps back

Warren Buffett, 96, becomes chairman emeritus with immediate effect and stays on the board. His eldest son, a director since 1993, takes the chair, while Greg Abel continues to run the company.

Warren Buffett stepped down on Friday as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the failing textile mill he bought in 1965 and turned into a trillion-dollar conglomerate. He is 96. The change took effect immediately. The board elected his eldest son, Howard G. Buffett, a director since 1993, as chairman, and named the father chairman emeritus. Warren Buffett remains a member of the board. In a letter to shareholders he wrote that Father Time always wins.

Business 18 September 2026

A Portuguese name from 1824 has just left the Lisbon stock exchange

Portugal's securities regulator cleared VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis to leave Euronext Lisbon on Thursday, with immediate effect. Visabeira Indústria must now buy the shares of holders who did not vote for the delisting, at €1.07 each, within three months.

Vista Alegre shares can no longer be bought or sold on the Lisbon exchange. The CMVM, Portugal's securities regulator, approved the delisting request from VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis, SGPS on Thursday, and the decision took effect immediately under article 251-F of the securities code. Nobody should be startled by it. The route was opened at the annual meeting on 29 May, where shareholders backed the exit at the request of Visabeira and a block of holders…

Business 17 September 2026

Abanca will take the boat as collateral, and front the subsidies that arrive late

Abanca Mar launched in Portugal on Thursday, lending to fishing, aquaculture, shipbuilding, ports, logistics, maritime tourism and offshore energy. It takes vessels as security and fronts public subsidies that have not yet landed.

A bank announcing that it lends to businesses is not news. A bank building a team that looks only at people who make their living from the sea says something about where it thinks the money is. Abanca launched Abanca Mar in Portugal on Thursday, a segment aimed at companies and sole traders in what gets called the blue economy. The definition is deliberately wide. It takes in fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing and trade, shipbuilding and the yards…

Ursula von der Leyen at the European Parliament podium beside an EU flag, delivering the 2026 State of the Union address

Business 16 September 2026

Europe insures a quarter of its disaster losses. Von der Leyen wants an alliance to change that

In her State of the Union address, the Commission president announced a European alliance for climate risk insurance. Around 25% of catastrophe losses in the EU are covered by private insurance, and the rest lands on national budgets.

One line in Wednesday's State of the Union address will get less coverage than the headline items, and it is probably the one that touches household finances in Portugal most directly. Only about a quarter of losses from catastrophes in Europe are covered by private insurance. The rest ends up where it always ends up, on the national budget.

Tugadaily bar chart comparing, in euros per kWh, the 2026 deviation of 0.0176, the 0.0100 trigger and the 0.0050 increase actually applied

Business 16 September 2026

Portugal's regulated electricity tariff goes up on 1 October. For most homes that is under a euro a month

ERSE is raising the energy tariff by €0.005 per kWh, about 2.7% on the average monthly bill. A couple with no children pay 95 cents more; a couple with two children pay €2.70 more. It covers 779,000 customers, and the regulator is passing on less than a third of the gap it found.

Electricity gets more expensive on 1 October for anyone still on Portugal's regulated tariff. ERSE is lifting the energy component by €0.005 per kWh, which works out at roughly 2.7% on the average monthly bill — and it is the percentage, not the amount, that will travel. The amount deserves an airing, because it changes how the number reads. The regulator's own statement works it through for two household types. A couple with no children, on 3.45 kVA and…

Business 15 September 2026

62 consultation responses have pushed Portugal's 1,050 MVA storage auction back by a month

Applications were due to open on Monday. The environment and energy minister put the delay at three or four weeks, and used a visit to Abrantes to confirm that part of the grid capacity at the old Pego coal plant is going to a technology free zone.

Monday was meant to be the day applications opened for 1,050 megavolt-amperes of electricity grid connection capacity, reserved for projects that include storage. They did not open. Maria da Graça Carvalho, the minister for environment and energy, explained the hold-up during a visit to the Tagusvalley science and technology park in Abrantes, and put it at three or four weeks. The reason is mundane, and in its way encouraging. Sixty-two submissions came…

Business 14 September 2026

From today the Portuguese state hands back 9.8 cents on every litre of diesel

Friday's order sets the extraordinary ISP rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of diesel and 65.92 for petrol, in force from Monday. It is not a tax cut — it is the extra VAT the state collects when prices rise, given back.

Fill up this week and you are paying less tax than you were last week, by a wider margin than the headlines suggest. The order signed on Friday by the environment and energy minister and the secretary of state for tax affairs fixes the extraordinary fuel-duty rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of road diesel and 65.92 euros per thousand litres of unleaded petrol. In the unit that shows up on the pump display: 9.8 cents off diesel, 6.6 off petrol.

Bar chart of where Portugal's gold is held: England 48.7%, Portugal 45.1%, BIS 5.2% and France 1.0%

Business 14 September 2026

Nearly half of Portugal's gold sits in London, and none of it is in New York

The Dutch central bank has just moved close to ten billion dollars of gold out of the US, and Spain, Germany and Italy have started arguing about doing the same. Portugal moved its 3.7 tonnes in 2021 — and the reason it gave was not political.

The Dutch central bank has spent recent months moving gold. Around 60 tonnes physically travelled out of the United States and Canada, half to its own vaults and half to the Bank of England, and the rest was sold in North America and repurchased in London — the reserves change address without the bars being the same bars. Nearly 100 tonnes in total. The governor talked about "readiness" and preparing for "severe crises". Nobody in Amsterdam said the word…

Business 13 September 2026

Douro growers will be paid for the grapes they don't pick (and the fruit has to stay on the vine)

The resolution behind the 12-million-euro package caps the payment at 1,125 euros a hectare and ties it to the drop against each grower's five-year average. It also gives the Port wine institute until 31 December to design a fund that would make this kind of rescue unnecessary.

The Douro harvest is halfway through and some of the fruit has no buyer. The government's answer is an emergency package worth 12 million euros, agreed in the Council of Ministers on 4 September and published five days later. The part almost nobody has picked up is how it works, because it is unusual: the money follows the grapes that stay where they are. The resolution creating the scheme authorises the Douro and Port Wine Institute to spend up to 12…