Sen. Bernard Sanders scolded a Danish drugmaker Tuesday for charging Americans at least six times what other nations pay for “game-changing” weight-loss drugs, saying millions of people with obesity or diabetes would manage their conditions better if the cost came down.
Mr. Sanders, Vermont independent and chairman of the Senate Health Committee, said Novo Nordisk has hauled in nearly $50 billion in sales from Ozempic and Wegovy, a pair of smash-hit medicines that upended the weight-loss industry.
Yet the drugmaker charges Americans with Type 2 diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic, while offering it for $155 in Canada, $122 in Denmark and $59 in Germany.
Novo Nordisk charges Americans with obesity $1,349 a month for Wegovy, but the drug can be purchased for $186 in Denmark, $140 in Germany and $92 in the U.K., the chairman said.
“The United States is Novo Nordisk’s cash cow for Ozempic and Wegovy,” Mr. Sanders said, adding that 72% of the drugmaker’s revenue from the drugs comes from the U.S. market.
Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen did not offer a direct explanation for the price disparity. Instead, he disputed that his company’s high-selling drugs are out of reach of everyday Americans. He said 80% of Americans with insurance have access to these medicines for $25 a month.
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“It’s the price point at the pharmacy counter we have to talk about,” he said.
Mr. Sanders agreed with the CEO about the counter price. But he said the CEO is forgetting something.
“Many of those people are paying outrageously high prices for the insurance that covers Ozempic and other drugs. So simply this is a pass-through to the insurance companies,” he said. “Bottom line is you are charging the American people substantially more for the same exact drug than you are charging people in other countries.”
Ozempic, known generically as a semaglutide, is an injectable drug that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for adults with Type 2 diabetes, though some doctors prescribe it for weight loss purposes. It helps the pancreas make more insulin.
Wegovy, another semaglutide drug, was approved for weight loss in 2021. It mimics a hormone that targets part of the brain responsible for managing appetite and food intake.
Roughly 40% of American adults are considered obese under body-mass index measurements, according to federal data.
Mr. Jørgensen said the company recognizes the demand and need for the drugs, part of a class known as GLP-1s. He said the company invested $30 billion to expand manufacturing. He said that’s a larger outlay than the U.S. space program, or for America’s electrical-vehicle charging network.
He also said the company has a generous patient assistance program for people without insurance.
Pharmaceutical companies often point to the cost of drug development as the reason for higher prices for blockbuster drugs.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, said it is often difficult to reconcile innovation with affordability.
“We have a tension,” he said. “It is the tension between the need to incentivize innovation and the ability to afford that innovation. And we are struggling to find that balance.”
Some Republicans blamed high costs on pharmacy benefit managers or middlemen who play an outsized role in determining which insurers and pharmacies offer certain drugs.
Sen. Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, said PBMs are siphoning off a large percentage fee from drug sales while Novo Nordisk recoups a small percentage of profits despite being the innovator that created the miracle drugs.
Mr. Sanders held fast, saying the high list prices are a major drain on private and taxpayer-funded insurers that cover the drugs. He said if the medicines were affordable, they would save the lives of tens of thousands of people and improve the lives of millions more.
“If. Made. Affordable,” Mr. Sanders repeated.
He cited a Yale University that said the drugs could be profitably manufactured for less than $5 a month, or $57 per year.
Earlier this week, at an expert discussion hosted by Mr. Sanders, the chairman said CEOs of major generic pharmaceutical companies are willing to sell Ozempic to Americans for less than $100 per month, at a profit.
This isn’t new terrain for Mr. Sanders, a hero of the political left who unsuccessfully ran for president. He’s taken COVID-19 vaccine makers to task for raising the list price of their shots after the worst of the pandemic was over, and signaled his gripes with Novo Nordisk were a symptom of the “cruel health care system in our country.”
“It is failing the needs of ordinary Americans,” Mr. Sanders said.
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