The anti-diabetic medicine “Ozempic” (semaglutide) built by Danish pharmaceutical corporation Novo Nordisk.
Joel Saget | AFP | Getty Illustrations or photos
The U.S. Senate has launched an investigation into the high rate of Novo Nordisk‘s preferred fat decline and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States.
The investigation into the Danish drugmaker was declared by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Unbiased who chairs the Overall health, Schooling, Labor and Pensions (Help) Committee.
“The scientists at Novo Nordisk have earned fantastic credit score for producing these drugs that have the prospective to be a match changer for millions of Us citizens having difficulties with sort 2 diabetic issues and being overweight,” Sanders explained in a Wednesday letter to CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen.
“As essential as these drugs are, they will not do any superior for the millions of people who are unable to afford to pay for them,” wrote Sanders.
Sanders also laid out in stark conditions the dilemma going through American insurers, which include the government, presented how high the expenses are for the likely daily life-modifying prescription drugs. “If the rates for these goods are not significantly diminished they also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our whole wellness care system,” he wrote.
Sanders observed that Novo Nordisk costs considerably much less for the exact same medicines in other nations. The business “prices $969 in the United States for a single month of Ozempic but just $155 in Canada and just $59 in Germany.”
Wegovy, which is even more expensive than Ozempic, is topic to equally disparate pricing overseas, wrote Sanders. A review past thirty day period claimed that Ozempic could be manufactured for significantly less than $5 a thirty day period.
The effective progressive senator also designed a straightforward request of the drug business CEO: “Will Novo Nordisk considerably minimize both of those the record selling price and the net price tag of the two Ozempic and Wegovy?”
Sanders asked Jørgensen in his letter how the price tag of the medications is identified and the amount the pharmaceutical corporation spends on research and development. He gave Novo Nordisk until finally May well 8 to answer a collection of questions about the drug’s pricing.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gestures though delivering remarks on lowering healthcare charges, in the Indian Treaty Place of the Eisenhower Executive Business office setting up, at the White Household intricate in Washington, U.S., April, 3, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Novo Nordisk declined to deliver generation expenditures to CNBC pursuing the launch of the research, and famous that it invested $5 billion on investigate and progress in 2023 and will spend more than $6 billion this yr to enhance manufacturing for GLP-1s.
In a assertion to CNBC Wednesday in reaction to the letter, Novo Nordisk mentioned they concur with Sanders that entry to the medicines is vital but highlighted the complexities of the healthcare industry.
“It truly is easy to oversimplify the science that goes into knowledge ailment and developing and making new solutions, as perfectly as the intricacies of U.S. and world wide health care systems. Nonetheless, the general public debate does not generally choose into account this really elaborate fact,” the business mentioned.
