NBC News
The chief executive of Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has defended the high US prices of its drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, saying their use saves taxpayers money on obesity-related costs.
“If you look at the cost of obesity in the United States, it is a disease that costs Americans more than $400 billion a year,” Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen said in an interview on the program NBC Nightly News NBC News said: “We are providing products that actually help alleviate that cost burden.”
Jørgensen described allegations that the company operates as a pharmaceutical cartel as “unfounded.”
His comments come ahead of an expected Senate appearance in September, where Jørgensen is scheduled to testify about the U.S. pricing of his popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told NBC News in June that he plans to ask Jørgensen why the drugmaker charges 10 to 15 times more for Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States than in other countries.
Novo Nordisk sells Wegovy for about $1,300 a month in the United Statesaccording to a report by the HELP Committee, while in Denmark it can be purchased for $186 monthly, in Germany for 137 and in the United Kingdom for 92.
“It is clear that Novo Nordisk is ripping off the American people,” Sanders said.
How much does obesity cost Americans?
Obesity-related health care spending in the United States is high.
A report released last year by KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues, found that in 2021, overweight or obese people with workplace health insurance spent an average of $12,588 on annual health costs — more than double the $4,699 for those without the condition.
People who are overweight or obese also face higher out-of-pocket payments: $1,487 on average, compared to $698 for those who do not suffer from these conditions.
But Stacie Dusetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said that at current prices for Ozempic and Wegovy, the savings that could be realized by reducing the burden of obesity-related care are not enough to offset the sharp rise in spending on these drugs.
“For many people, these drugs could be a very good option to improve their health, but they are unlikely to reduce overall spending,” Dusetzina explained. “Overall, the price of these drugs would have to come down significantly for them to produce an overall saving in health spending.”
A complex health system
Jørgensen said he had “voluntarily offered” to appear before the committee to discuss the pricing of Ozempic and Wegovy at the September hearing. His announcement came three days after Sanders threatened to hold a vote to subpoena company CEO Doug Langa.
Jørgensen said he plans to talk about the “complexities of the American health care system, a system we participate in but cannot change.”
“This requires a policy change,” he said, blaming insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, for the high out-of-pocket costs patients pay for drugs.
PBMs work with insurers to negotiate discounts from drugmakers in exchange for including the drug in their coverage. But as PBMs become more established and have more influence over which drugs are covered, experts say they may be inflating prices.
In July, the Federal Trade Commission released an interim report on how PBMs raise prices for patients.
“I recognize that some patients have precarious insurance,” Jørgensen said. “And if you have precarious insurance, it can be difficult to afford your medicines, so we have support programs and we are trying to help them.”
Jørgensen also said the United States needs to have a “discussion about what the value of these drugs is” for patients.
Cynthia Cox, KFF vice president and director of its Affordable Care Act program, said that while drugs can prevent and reduce a range of obesity-related diseases, the cost of the medications remains high and it’s unclear how long people should continue taking them to continue losing weight and improving their health.
“The widespread use of these weight loss drugs is still relatively new, so I’m not sure we have enough long-term data to assess the costs and benefits,” Cox said.
