Lia DeGroot | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call
WASHINGTON — The CEO of Novo Nordisk is set to appear before a Senate panel Tuesday to be grilled on the high cost of Ozempic and Wegovy, the popular drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity.
But health economists say it’s unlikely that congressional pressure will be the driving force to get the prices down.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has established himself as a perennial critic of pharmaceutical companies during his time helming the committee. He initially had threatened to subpoena the president of Novo Nordisk, Doug Langa, to testify before the committee. The company ultimately agreed to send CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen to field questions on price.
Sanders has repeatedly dug in his heels on what seems like a straightforward question: Why does Novo Nordisk charge so much in the United States but much less in countries like Canada and Germany?
This week, Jørgensen will likely tell the committee that it’s a bit more complicated than that. In a statement to CQ Roll Call on Friday, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson touted actions that the company has taken to make Ozempic and Wegovy, both GLP-1s, more affordable.
Novo currently sells Ozempic, the version to treat diabetes, for $968.52 per month. It sells Wegovy to treat obesity for $1,349.02 per month, according to its website. By comparison, Ozempic has a list price of $59 per month in Germany, $122 per month in Denmark and $155 per month in Canada, according to the global drug pricing and market access database NAVLIN.
The spokesperson said more than 80 percent of Americans with insurance pay $25 or less per month for Ozempic.
“Unfortunately, even when we lower our prices, too often patients in the United States don’t receive the savings — this is a problem,” the spokesperson said. “We appreciate that it is frustrating that each country has its own healthcare system but…
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