The antidiabetic drug “Ozempic” (semaglutide) manufactured by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.
Joel Saget | AFP | fake images
The United States Senate has launched an investigation into the high price of NordiskPopular diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States.
The investigation into the Danish pharmaceutical company was announced by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP).
“Novo Nordisk scientists deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have the potential to be a game-changer for millions of Americans struggling with type 2 diabetes and obesity,” Sanders said in a Wednesday letter to CEO , Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.
“As important as these medications are, they will do no good to the millions of patients who cannot afford them,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders also laid out in stark terms the dilemma facing American insurers, including the government, given how high the costs of potentially life-changing drugs are. “If the prices of these products are not substantially 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 drugs in other countries. The company “charges $969 in the United States for a month of Ozempic, but only $155 in Canada and only $59 in Germany.”
Wegovy, which is even more expensive than Ozempic, is subject to similarly disparate prices abroad, Sanders wrote. A study last month said Ozempic could be manufactured for less than $5 a month.
The powerful progressive senator also made a simple request to the pharmaceutical company's CEO: “Will Novo Nordisk substantially reduce both the list price and the net price of Ozempic and Wegovy?”
Sanders asked Jørgensen in his letter how the price of drugs is determined and how much the pharmaceutical company spends on research and development is clarified. He gave Novo Nordisk until May 8 to answer a series of questions about the drug's price.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gestures as he delivers remarks on reducing health care costs, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on the White House complex in Washington, USA, April 3, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Novo Nordisk declined to provide production costs to CNBC following the study's publication, noting that it spent $5 billion on research and development in 2023 and will spend more than $6 billion this year to boost LPG manufacturing. 1.
In a statement to CNBC on Wednesday in response to the letter, Novo Nordisk said the company agrees with Sanders that access to medicines is important, but highlighted the complexities of the healthcare industry.
“It is easy to oversimplify the science used to understand diseases and develop and produce new treatments, as well as the complexities of the American and global health systems. However, public debate does not always take into account this extremely complex reality” , he claimed. the company said.
