The anti-diabetic drug “Ozempic” (semaglutide) produced by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.
Joel Saget | AFP | Getty Images
The U.S. Senate initiated a investigation Enter high price Novo NordiskThe popular weight loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are more popular in the United States than in other countries where these drugs are sold.
The investigation into the Danish drugmaker was announced by Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
“Novo Nordisk scientists deserve great credit for developing these medicines, which have the potential to be a game changer for millions of Americans battling type 2 diabetes and obesity,” Sanders said Wednesday. letter Two CEOs Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.
“While these drugs are important, they offer no benefit to the millions of patients who cannot afford them,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders also bluntly laid out the dilemma faced by U.S. insurance companies, including the government, because the cost of these potentially life-changing drugs is so high. “If the prices of these products are not significantly reduced, they also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our entire health care system,” he wrote.
Sanders noted that Novo Nordisk charges much less for the same drug in other countries. The company “charges $969 for a month of Ozempic in the U.S., but only $155 in Canada and $59 in Germany.”
Sanders wrote that Wegovy is even more expensive than Ozempic, and faces similarly disparate pricing overseas. A study last month suggested Ozempic could be manufactured for less than $5 a month.
The powerful progressive senator also had a simple request for drug company CEOs: “Will Novo Nordisk significantly reduce the list price and net price of Ozempic and Wegovy?”
In his letter, Sanders asked Jorgensen how drug prices are determined and how much drug companies spend on research and development. He gave Novo Nordisk until May 8 to answer a series of questions about the drug’s pricing.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gestures during a speech on reducing health care costs in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House on April 3, 2024 in Washington, U.S.
Evelyn Hochstein | Reuters
After the study was released, Novo Nordisk declined to provide production costs to CNBC, noting that it will spend $5 billion on research and development in 2023 and more than $6 billion this year to boost production of GLP-1.
Novo Nordisk said in a statement to CNBC on Wednesday in response to the letter that it agrees with Sanders that access to these drugs is important but also highlights the complexities of the health care industry.
“The science of understanding disease, developing and producing new treatments, and the complexity of the U.S. and global health care systems can easily be oversimplified. However, public debate does not always take into account this extremely complex reality,” the company said .
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