Sanders takes aim at ‘unacceptable’ price of weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy | news from USA

Successful weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic are definitely as present in the American press as Taylor Swift or the iPhone. The drug and others in its class are associated with Hollywood glamour, on Oprah’s lips, and considered transformative by doctors.

But the giant market for drugs like Wegovy, including not only the roughly 11% of adults who have diabetes, but also 42% of adults who have obesity, has awakened one of the price demons of American health care.

Americans paid 10 times more for Ozempic than UK patients in 2023 – $936 a month compared to $93. Wegovy costs Americans $1,349 a month, compared to $296 in the Netherlands (the drug is not yet available in the UK).

This wild discrepancy has caught the attention of one of the most vocal critics of the drug industry, US Senator Bernie Sanders.

“Prices vary around the world, but we are paying much, much, much more for the same products than other countries,” Sanders told the Guardian in an interview. “And that’s unacceptable to me.”

Sanders, an independent from Vermont and chairman of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (AID) committee, has used his pulpit to drag pharmaceutical executives into the public eye and demand lower prices.

Although it is hardly similar to the drug bargaining programs imposed by America’s counterpart nations — where companies bargain with the government for access to universal health programs — the committee has lowered prices for both asthma inhalers and insulin. .

“What we’re focusing on right now is what could end up being one of the best-selling pharmaceutical products in human history, and that’s Ozempic and Wegovy,” Sanders said. “These are very important game changers that help people with diabetes and obesity.â€

Sanders is preparing to face off against the chief executive of the Danish pharmaceutical giant that makes both drugs, Novo Nordisk. Under threat of subpoena, its CEO, Lars Fruergaard Jrgensen, agreed to testify before the same committee in September. But even for Sanders, the challenge is great.

“You’re taking over a company that’s going to make billions of dollars every year, many billions of dollars from the US, just for this product,” Sanders said. “So do I think this will be a tough challenge? yes.â€

In response to questions from the Guardian, a spokesman for Novo Nordisk said Fruergaard Jørgensen, “[looks] forward to discuss solutions that ensure access and affordability for all patients within the complex US health care system.

The class of drugs that includes Wegovy are called glucagon-like peptide-1 or GLP-1 agonists. The drugs can help people lose up to 15% of their body weight, making them potentially attractive to a large portion of the 42% of American adults that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says are obese.

“It’s been transformative in the management of obesity,” said Dr. Scott Hagan, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine who researches obesity. “There is a lot more interest in weight management from patients because these drugs are now available.”

Apparently the last drugs to tap into such a market were statins, introduced in the 1980s to control cholesterol and now prescribed to 47 million Americans. With monopoly protection and the explosive potential of the market, researchers worry that GLP-1 has the potential to ‘bankrupt’ the US healthcare system.

“These drugs are really expensive for a large patient population theoretically for the rest of their lives,” said health economist Melissa Barber, a postdoctoral fellow with a joint appointment at the University’s School of Law and School of Medicine. Yale.

If half of all obese people in the U.S. took the drug, it would cost roughly $411 billion a year — more than the $406 billion Americans spend on it. all retail drugs in the year 2022.

GLP-1 agonists now account for 9% of all private insurance drug spending and have the potential to be the most expensive drug category within three years, according to health analytics company Nomi Health. Novo Nordisk says roughly 25,000 new people try the drugs each week, and 6% of all American adults are already taking them, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So far, only one US state has faced the financial strain. The state of North Carolina removed GLP-1 agonists from its employee insurance plan in March, citing the potential for monthly premiums to double for the 740,000 people the state insures.

This is happening as usage remains limited by production capacity, poor insurance coverage and costs. Some people also have difficulty tolerating the side effects of medications. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, and “ozemic face”—a hollow look, sunken eyes, and changes in the size of the lips, cheeks, and chin possible with any GLP-1—may put some off. In particular, since the drugs are new, the long-term side effects are still unknown.

At the same time, researchers argue that companies do not need to force existential financial choices. Barber led an investigation published in JAMA Network Open that “broke” this March. Her analysis found that GLP-1 agonists could be produced for as little as $0.89 per weekly dose, not including research and development costs, for humanitarian organizations and low-income countries.

The price of GLP-1 drugs is forcing us to realize that extending the logic that we’ve provided for many drugs would really bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid, Barber said, referring to public programs that collectively provide more. than 116 million Americans.

“The cost charged to other countries is quite significant because even if I’m wrong and I don’t think I am, it’s not a charity. It’s clear that the prices are stable.”

Like many drugs, early development of GLP-1 agonists occurred in the public sector. US Veterans Affairs endocrinologist Dr John Eng discovered a hormone he called “extendin” in the venom of gila monsters – “large lizards native to the American Southwest” – after learning that the reptiles slowed their metabolism and conserved blood . sugar levels in response to long periods without food.

Eng licensed the discovery to a pharmaceutical company to bring the first GLP-1 to market in 2005, a drug that was approved to help treat type 2 diabetes. Wegovy represents the leading brand name of a second-generation agonist GLP-1 – one of 10 on the market, three for the treatment of obesity and 51 in clinical trials.

However, GLP-1 agonists are only available to a fraction of Americans who might want to try them, to say nothing of the hundreds of millions of adults with diabetes who live in low- and middle-income countries.

Without the ability to meet market demand in the U.S., Nordisk hasn’t even sold the drug elsewhere, Barber said. Demand for GLP-1 agonists in the US is so deep that it appears to be undermining insulin pen availability in at least one lower-income country.

Nordisk recently ended its 10-year contract with South Africa to supply multi-use insulin pens for about $2 each. South Africa’s health department’s procurement specialist accused the company of shifting its focus to more profitable weight-loss drugs. Novo Nordisk said it is ramping up production of insulin vials with a focus on South Africa.