A field of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk, at a pharmacy in London on March 8, 2024.
Hollie Adams | Reuters
Novo Nordisk on Monday mentioned it now offers cash-paying U.S. sufferers its blockbuster diabetes remedy Ozempic for lower than half its month-to-month listing worth, as drugmakers face mounting political stress to decrease costs within the nation.
Patients pays $499 in cash per 30 days for three dose sizes of Ozempic. They can get the value by means of platforms together with the drug’s official web site, Novo Nordisk’s affected person help program and the corporate’s lately launched direct-to-consumer online pharmacy, the latter of which additionally ships the injection on to sufferers’ properties.
Drug financial savings firm GoodRx can even supply Ozempic and its weight reduction counterpart Wegovy for $499 per 30 days, making the reductions obtainable at greater than 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, in accordance with a Novo Nordisk launch.
Novo Nordisk’s cash-pay providing will develop entry to eligible Type 2 diabetes sufferers who do not have insurance coverage protection for the weekly injection. In March, the corporate began to offer Wegovy for half its listing worth to cash-paying Americans.
Ozempic’s listing worth earlier than insurance coverage and different rebates is sort of $1,350 per 30 days, and has been a frequent goal of political and public blowback lately. The new supply comes after President Donald Trump in July despatched separate letters to Novo Nordisk and 16 different drugmakers, calling on them to take steps to decrease remedy costs within the U.S. Among different urged actions, he urged them to undertake fashions that promote medicines on to shoppers or companies.
The efforts purpose to make Ozempic and Wegovy obtainable to extra folks, whereas additionally making certain that sufferers use the branded remedy as a substitute of cheaper compounded copycats. Those medication exploded in reputation throughout a now-resolved U.S. scarcity of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, the lively ingredient in each medication.
While Ozempic “is well covered in the US, let’s not forget that there are some patients who pay out-of-pocket for this vital medicine,” Dave Moore, govt vice chairman of U.S. operations and international enterprise improvement at Novo Nordisk, mentioned within the launch. “We believe that if even a single patient feels the need to turn to potentially unsafe and unapproved knockoff alternatives, that’s one too many.”
Eli Lilly has equally moved to slash the value of its well-liked weight problems and diabetes medication for cash-paying sufferers. The two firms are preventing to dominate the market for so-called GLP-1s, which mimic sure intestine hormones to suppress urge for food and regulate blood sugar.