A month’s supply of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes wonder-drug Ozempic has an average list price of $936 in the U.S. compared to just $83 in France, according to a 2023 report by American health policy organization KFF.
“If the prices of these drugs are not substantially reduced, they have the potential to bankrupt the American healthcare system,” Biden and Sanders wrote.
Unless Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies substantially lower prescription drug prices, “we will do everything within our power” to end their greed for them, they added.
Novo Nordisk hit back at such claims on Wednesday, telling POLITICO it was “disappointed that a very difficult and complex problem is being oversimplified and mischaracterized for political purposes.”
“Each country has its own health care system and making isolated and limited comparisons ignores this fundamental concern,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
Ozempic’s price “has decreased approximately 40 percent since launch and over 80 percent of Americans with insurance only pay $25 or less per month” for the medicine, the pharma added.
“Unfortunately, even when we lower our prices, patients in the United States often don’t receive the savings — this is a problem.”
Surging demand for Ozempic, which is favored by diabetes patients for its health benefits as well as by Hollywood celebrities for its tendency to promote weight loss, has sent Novo Nordisk’s profits and share price soaring. Its market capitalization of $570 billion is now bigger than Denmark’s entire GDP.
