Maker of Ozempic and Wegovy faces grilling over high cost of weight loss drugs

The Novo Nordisk chief executive, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is expected to answer questions about the rising costs of the company’s sought after weight loss production on Tuesday on Capitol.

Later this morning, Jørgensen will testify before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in front of in a livestreamed hearing beginning at 10 a.m. ET.

The committee head, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, has been vocal complaining about how much Novo Nordisk is making Americans to pay for both Ozempic, a type 2 diabetes medication, and Wegovy a more recent FDA-approved prescription for weight loss.

But in terms of price, we pay without question more than any other country for prescription drugs.” Same exact medicine that they buy in Canada or Europe just costs a fraction of what they offer it for in the United States,” Sanders said in an interview Monday. “The consequence of that is that hundreds of thousands of people in this country who so urgently need this product will not be able to purchase it.” 

A previous committee report indicated that the cost of Wegovy is considerably cheaper in the European countries – from $140 a month in Germany to $92 one month in United Kingdom. Americans make do with the exact same drug but the price they are charged is $1,349 per month.

“There is no doubt now that Novo Nordisk is cheating the American people,” Sanders said to NBC News in June.

On Monday, Novo Nordisk issued a statement that explained its pricing strategies more fully.

“We understand why it is annoying that each country has its own health care system, but random, localized and restricted comparisons deny” a “basic reality,” the company written. “Unfortunately even when we drop our price often patients in the United States do not get the benefits of this — this is an issue.” 

In February a report was published by the Department of Health and Human Services and it was established that prices of both branded and generic drugs in America in 2022 were 2.81 times higher than in other developed countries.

It also said that the net price for Ozempic has reduced by a third since it entered the US Market, and Wegovy is similarly “on a similar path.” Net price is the amount by which a drug firm earns from a drug after deductions for rebates and discount.

He defended the costs of both drugs in an interview with NBC News last month, stating that it acts as a return on investment for the taxpayer because it eliminates the costs of health care linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes.

“I can already tell you that walking and standing are fitter than sitting because if you look at just the cost of obesity in the U.S., it’s a disease that costs Americans more than $400 billion a year,” he said. “We are actually providing products that’s actually helping take that cost burden off.”

He has also remarked that other pharma players are also admitting that they could produce generic versions of Ozempic and Wegovy, which have the same active compound – semaglutide – at a much lower price. He has refused to reveal the names of those companies.

Semaglutide belongs to the Novo Nordisk Company thus making other companies unable to produce a generic version. Which leaves Novo Nordisk — and ultimately, Jørgensen — to field inquiries about the cost of many of its best-selling medicines.