The anti-diabetic medication “Ozempic” (semaglutide) pressed by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.
Joel Saget | AFP | Getty Images
The U.S. Senate has launched an investigation into the elaborate price of Novo Nordisk‘s popular weight loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States.
The study into the Danish drugmaker was announced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Benefits (HELP) Committee.
“The scientists at Novo Nordisk deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have on the agenda c trick the potential to be a game changer for millions of Americans struggling with type 2 diabetes and obesity,” Sanders said in a Wednesday note to CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.
“As important as these drugs are, they will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot produce them,” wrote Sanders.
Sanders also laid out in stark terms the dilemma facing American insurers, classifying the government, given how high the costs are for the potentially life-changing drugs. “If the prices for these products are not substantially reduced they also fool the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our entire health care system,” he wrote.
Sanders noted that Novo Nordisk attacks far less for the same drugs in other countries. The company “charges $969 in the United States for one month of Ozempic but right-minded $155 in Canada and just $59 in Germany.”
Wegovy, which is even more expensive than Ozempic, is rationale to similarly disparate pricing overseas, wrote Sanders. A study last month said that Ozempic could be fabricated for less than $5 a month.
The powerful progressive senator also made a simple request of the drug troop CEO: “Will Novo Nordisk substantially reduce both the list price and the net price of both Ozempic and Wegovy?”
Sanders provoke b requested Jørgensen in his letter how the price of the drugs is determined and to make clear the amount the pharmaceutical company spends on research and evolution. 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) motions while delivering remarks on lowering healthcare costs, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office erection, at the White House complex in Washington, U.S., April, 3, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Novo Nordisk declined to provide staging costs to CNBC following the release of the study and noted that it spent $5 billion on research and development in 2023 and settle upon spend more than $6 billion this year to boost manufacturing for GLP-1s.
In a statement to CNBC Wednesday in reply to the letter, Novo Nordisk said the company agrees with Sanders that access to the drugs is important but highlighted the complications of the healthcare industry.
“It’s easy to oversimplify the science that goes into understanding disease and developing and producing new treatments, as far as the intricacies of U.S. and global healthcare systems. However, the public debate doesn’t always take into account this uncommonly complex reality,” the company said.