After some persuasion from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the CEO of Novo Nordisk will testify earlier than lawmakers later this yr on the “outrageously excessive price” of the corporate’s diabetes and weight-loss medication—Ozempic and Wegovy—within the US.
CEO Lars Jørgensen will seem earlier than the Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), which is chaired by Sanders, in early September. The settlement got here after a dialog with Sanders by which the CEO reportedly “reconsidered his place” and agreed to testify voluntarily. As such, Sanders has canceled a vote scheduled for June 18 on whether or not to subpoena Novo Nordisk to debate its US costs, that are significantly larger than these of different international locations.
The unbiased lawmaker has been working for months to strain Novo Nordisk into decreasing its costs and showing earlier than the committee. In April, Sanders despatched Jørgensen a letter saying an investigation into the costs and included a prolonged set of data requests. In Might, the committee’s investigation launched a report suggesting that Novo Nordisk’s present pricing threatens to “bankrupt our total well being care system.”
Sanders has repeatedly hammered not solely the excessive costs of Novo Nordisk’s two blockbuster medication but in addition the massive disparity between US costs and people in different international locations.
As much as 15x extra within the US
“Novo Nordisk presently costs People with kind 2 diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic, whereas this identical actual drug will be bought for simply $155 in Canada and simply $59 in Germany,” Sanders wrote in April. “Novo Nordisk additionally costs People with weight problems $1,349 a month for Wegovy, whereas this identical actual product will be bought for simply $140 in Germany and $92 in the UK.”
Yale researchers, in the meantime, printed a examine in JAMA in March estimating that each medication could possibly be manufactured for lower than $5.
In Might, Novo Nordisk responded with a letter to Sanders, arguing that blame for top costs within the US lies with the nation’s complicated well being system and with center managers who take cuts, in response to Bloomberg. Novo Nordisk mentioned within the letter that it’s ready to deal with “systemic points so that everybody who can profit from its medicines is ready to get them,” the outlet reported. The corporate additionally mentioned it has spent over $10 billion on analysis and growth to convey Wegovy and Ozempic to the market.
Nonetheless, that quantity is small compared to the projected income from the medication. Bloomberg famous that analysts estimate that Novo Nordisk will make $27 billion from the 2 medication this yr alone. The Might evaluation by the HELP committee discovered that if simply half of the adults within the US with weight problems begin taking a brand new weight-loss drug, akin to Wegovy, the collective price can be round $411 billion per yr. One other report by the Congressional Price range Workplace discovered that the medication’ prices are so excessive that they won’t be offset by any monetary positive factors from improved well being outcomes.
“The Committee seems ahead to Mr. Jørgensen explaining why People are paying as much as 10 or 15 occasions extra for these medicines than folks in different international locations,” Sanders mentioned final week.
