WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., renewed his criticism of drugmaker Novo Nordisk on Tuesday, claiming that the CEOs of major generic pharmaceutical companies have told him that they can produce and sell its blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic for less than $100 a month.
Sanders made the remark at an expert roundtable event on Capitol Hill, which served as a preview to Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen’s testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next week.
In June, Jørgensen agreed to testify over the pricing of Ozempic in the U.S., as well as that of the drugmaker’s hugely popular weight loss drug Wegovy. Sanders, who chairs the Senate committee, opened an investigation into Novo Nordisk’s pricing practices in April.
Novo Nordisk charges around $1,300 a month for Wegovy in the U.S., even though the drug can be purchased for $186 a month in Denmark, $137 in Germany and $92 in the United Kingdom, according to a committee report.
During Tuesday’s roundtable, Sanders said his recent conversations with generic drugmakers revealed that Novo Nordisk’s pricing is “nothing less than excess corporate greed.”
“They have studied the math, and they tell me that they can sell a generic version of Ozempic, the exact same drug that Novo Nordisk is manufacturing, to Americans for less than $100 a month,” Sanders said. “Less than 10% of what Americans are currently paying.”
Sanders’ office declined to say which generic drug companies told him that they could sell Ozempic at a fraction of what Novo Nordisk charges.
Whether generic drugmakers can actually sell Ozempic at a lower price is irrelevant since Novo Nordisk holds the exclusive patent, meaning other companies are barred from producing the drug.
Still, Sanders’ comment offers a glimpse into the types of questions Jørgensen is likely to face next week.
In a statement, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the net price of Ozempic — the amount paid after discounts and rebates — has declined 40% since the drug was approved in the U.S. in 2017, and the net price of Wegovy is following a similar trend.
The roundtable on Tuesday included experts from Yale, T1Internatonal, an advocacy group for people with Type 1 diabetes, and Dale Folwell, the state treasurer of North Carolina, who has been critical of the high cost of Ozempic and Wegovy in his state.
In August, Sanders commented on Eli Lilly’s move to cut the cost of its two lowest doses of its weight loss drug Zepbound, calling it “a modest step forward,” but criticized the drugmaker for not lowering the price of its diabetes drug Mounjaro.
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