U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a press conference on the cost of prescription drugs in the United States at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Sept. 17, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Sanders spoke out against drugmaker Novo Nordisk accusing them of “ripping off” U.S. consumers for charging more for weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy compared to other countries.
This week, Jørgensen will likely tell the committee that it’s a bit more complicated than that. In a statement to CQ Roll Call on Friday, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson touted actions that the company has taken to make Ozempic and Wegovy, both GLP-1s, more affordable. At the roundtable, Sanders announced he had spoken with generic drug companies that told him they could make a version of Ozempic that could be sold for $100 per month.
“What’s going to be the most effective lever in the short term is the market dynamics of what’s going on with competitors,” she said. “Up until this point, no one’s really put pressure on the manufacturers or on the federal government to use those mechanisms in regard to the GLP-1s,” she said.