OAN Staff Abril Elfi
3:42 PM – Tuesday, September 24, 2024
During a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers questioned the manufacturer of popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, citing what Senator Bernie Sanders called “outrageously high” drug prices.
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Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is scheduled to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, chaired by the Independent Vermont senator.
Sanders told reporters on Monday that the hearing will revolve around “asking Novo Nordisk why they continue to rip off the American people.”
“Most of their sales are here in the United States,” Sanders said. “We are their cash cow.”
Sanders also reiterated those comments during the hearing.
The pricing for Ozempic and Wegoy medication is much higher in the United States than in other countries.
According to the committee, Novo Nordisk charges Americans with diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic, while in Canada it costs only $155 a month, and in Germany, $59 a month.
For Wegovy, the committee found that the company charges Americans $1,349 per month, in comparison to the lower price of $140 in Germany and $92 in the United Kingdom.
In response, Jørgensen shifted blame onto the United States’ healthcare system, claiming that pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, which are owned by insurance companies and charge a percentage of a drug’s listed price, frequently exclude lower-cost medications from their offerings.
“It’s been our experience, [that] a product that comes with a low list price gets less coverage,” the CEO said.
PBMs and insurance companies do not invest in research and development to develop medications, but those that do must negotiate pricing with them, according to Jørgensen.
“It’s absurd,” he added.
After Sanders assured him that the three leading PBMs had agreed not to reduce access to Ozempic and Wegovy if Novo Nordisk significantly reduced the cost, the executive said he’d be willing to negotiate, but still had reservations.
“Last year, we lowered the insulin pricing and had our products dropped,” said Jorgensen. “So, I have a bit of concern about how this process will play out.”
The company stated last year that it would phase out and permanently discontinue its long-acting insulin Levemir in the U.S. by the end of the year, citing factors like reduced patient access.
The popular weight loss drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists, are frequently used by those with diabetes and obesity, and they have seen a major increase in demand over the last year. However, 54% of adults who have used a GLP-1 drug, including those with insurance, maintain that the cost was still “difficult” to include in their budget, according to a KFF poll released in May.
Meanwhile, a recent Yale University study suggests that the drugs can be profitably manufactured at “substantially lower” prices than what Americans pay.
Prior to the hearing, Sanders stated that the demand for the drugmaker must be that it “substantially lower the cost of your product” and not charge Americans more than it charges residents of other countries.
In a statement issued prior to the hearing, the drugmaker defended its pricing, saying, “We understand how frustrating it is that each country has its own health care system, but making isolated and limited comparisons ignores this fundamental fact.”
It also claimed that even when the company lowers its prices, a large majority of patients in the United States do not benefit from the savings.
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