Ozempic CEO agrees to debate decrease costs for blockbuster weight reduction medicine

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday extracted a meager dedication from Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen to satisfy with pharmacy advantages managers to debate decreasing the price of its blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. 

Through the usually tense listening to earlier than the Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions, Jørgensen shifted the blame for the medicine’ excessive costs to the pharmacy advantages managers (PBMs), saying that Ozempic and Wegovy would not be provided by the middlemen if that they had a decrease checklist worth.

A “excessive checklist worth,” he mentioned, “is extra more likely to result in extra entry to sufferers.” 

Sanders, nevertheless, mentioned that he lately obtained commitments in writing from “all the major PBMs” — UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, CVS Well being’s Caremark and Cigna’s Specific Scripts — that if Novo Nordisk considerably diminished the checklist worth, they wouldn’t take Ozempic and Wegovy off their formularies, or the checklist of medicine they provide. PBMs work with insurance coverage corporations to barter reductions or rebates on medicine in return for protection. PBMs have been criticized for pushing patents to higher-priced medicine.

“If in actual fact they hold their dedication, will Novo Nordisk considerably decrease the checklist worth of Ozempic and Wegovy within the U.S.?” Sanders, who chairs the committee, requested.

Jørgensen initially dodged a agency response, detailing quite a few issues. “I’ve to know what this entails,” he mentioned. 

“However I’m asking you once more, will you’re employed with this committee and the PBMs?” Sanders requested. 

“Sure,” Jørgensen replied.

“No. 2,” Sanders mentioned. “I perceive that it’s difficult, will you in actual fact considerably decrease the costs on this nation?”

“If it really works in a means the place sufferers get entry to a extra inexpensive drugs, and we’ve got to make sure that it truly occurs,” Jørgensen mentioned.

Sanders has been vocal about his frustrations over how a lot Novo Nordisk expenses People for each Ozempic (used to deal with kind 2 diabetes) and Wegovy (accredited for weight reduction).

“Normally, we pay by far the very best costs on the earth for prescribed drugs. Identical actual drugs offered in Canada, Europe is a fraction of what it’s in the US,” Sanders mentioned in an interview Monday. “The results of that’s that lots of of 1000’s of individuals on this nation who desperately want this product will not be able to afford it.” 

A beforehand launched committee report confirmed that the price of Wegovy is considerably much less in European international locations — from $140 a month in Germany to $92 a month in the UK. People pay about $1,349 a month for the very same drug.

Throughout his opening assertion Tuesday, Jørgensen defended the drugmaker’s pricing construction. 

“Kind 2 diabetes prices the U.S. roughly $413 billion yearly and weight problems prices the U.S. $1.7 trillion, and everyone knows the bodily and emotional toll these illnesses have,” he mentioned. “That’s why we effort to safe private and non-private insurance coverage protection for sufferers with Kind 2 diabetes and weight problems.”

A Division of Health and Human Services report in February discovered that in 2022, costs of all medicine within the U.S. — each model identify and generic — had been practically 3 times as excessive as in different rich international locations.

Ozempic’s internet worth has gone down by 40% because it was launched within the U.S., Novo Nordisk said last week. Wegovy, too, is “following an analogous trajectory.” The online worth is how a lot cash a drug firm makes from a drug after rebates and reductions.

Jørgensen wasn’t alone in voicing his ire for pharmacy profit managers.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va, mentioned whereas he supported the give attention to the pharmaceutical trade, “we’re letting PBMs get away scot-free.”

“One trade researches, one doesn’t. One produces life-saving remedies, one doesn’t,” Kaine mentioned. “One trade is super-duper worthwhile and the opposite worthwhile, however the one that’s tremendous worthwhile isn’t doing any analysis and never producing any life-saving improvements.”

On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission sued Optum Rx, Caremark and Specific Scripts within the U.S., accusing them of “artificially” inflating the worth of insulin.

Jørgensen claimed that for each greenback Novo Nordisk makes, it offers 74 cents to PBMs and insurance coverage corporations.

“Once we set a listing worth, we’ve got to think about what are the rebates we’ve got to pay as a result of, until we pay huge rebates into the system, once we negotiate rebates with PBMs, we’re not having access to the formulary,” Jørgensen mentioned. 

That’s why, he argued, larger costs be sure that a PBM will cowl Novo Nordisk’s medicine.

Republicans on the committee largely discouraged authorities stress to decrease the checklist worth.

Doing so might hinder the event of recent life-saving medicines, mentioned Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., rating member of the committee, utilizing an argument usually shared by the pharmaceutical trade.

“With out a revenue motive, with out one thing in return, it’s unclear that these medicine, or any drug, goes to be developed,” Cassidy mentioned.