Ozempic maker to testify before Senate committee on weight loss drug prices

Washington — Lawmakers will question the maker of popular weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy during a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday focused on what Sen. Bernie Sanders has called “outrageously high” prices Americans pay for the drugs. 

Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, led by Sanders.

Sanders, a Vermont independent, told reporters on Monday that the hearing is about “simply asking Novo Nordisk why they continue to rip off the American people.”

“Most of their sales are here in the United States,” Sanders said. “We are their cash cow.”

The drug company has set prices for Ozempic and Wegovy much higher than in other countries. The committee found earlier this year that Novo Nordisk charges Americans with diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic, while in Canada it costs $155 and $59 in Germany. For Wegovy, the committee found that Novo Nordisk charges Americans with obesity $1,349 per month, as compared to $140 in Germany and $92 in the United Kingdom.

The popular weight loss drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists, are often used by people with diabetes and obesity, and have seen soaring demand in the last year. But for 54% of adults who had taken a GLP-1 drug — even those with insurance — they said the cost was “difficult” to afford, according to a KFF poll released in May.

Meanwhile, a recent study by Yale University suggested that the drugs can be profitably manufactured for “substantially lower” than the amounts Americans are paying.

Heading into the hearing, Sanders said the demand for the drugmaker must be that it “substantially lower the cost of your product,” and not charge Americans more than people in other countries. 

The drugmaker defended its pricing in a statement ahead of the hearing, saying “we appreciate that it is frustrating that each country has its own healthcare system, but making isolated and limited comparisons ignores this fundamental fact,” while claiming that even when the company lowers its prices, too often patients in the U.S. don’t see the savings.

Alan He and

Anna Werner

contributed to this report.