Novo Nordisk will reduce the value of its blockbuster weight reduction medicine Wegovy to $499 monthly for sure sufferers who pay utilizing their very own cash as a substitute of going by way of insurance coverage, the drug maker stated on Wednesday.
The transfer may trigger extra sufferers to begin taking the drug. However the impression stands to be restricted, as a result of the choice doesn’t decrease costs for sufferers who get their medical insurance by way of authorities packages or for employers which are battling the large prices of medicines like Wegovy, which have revolutionized the therapy of weight problems.
To be eligible for the diminished worth, sufferers have to be uninsured or commercially insured on plans that don’t cowl the drug. Beforehand, the drug maker had supplied a coupon to such sufferers permitting them to get a month’s provide of the drug for $650; Wednesday’s transfer interprets into financial savings of $150 monthly for such sufferers.
The brand new providing will not be obtainable to tens of thousands and thousands of Individuals who get their insurance coverage by way of authorities packages like Medicare and Medicaid — a demographic that largely lacks insurance coverage protection for weight reduction medication like Wegovy. To get Novo Nordisk’s drug, these sufferers should typically pay $1,300 or extra monthly out of pocket at a pharmacy.
Novo Nordisk will supply the discounted product by way of an internet pharmacy that may ship prescriptions to sufferers by way of the mail — a method that drug makers are more and more utilizing to take extra management of the distribution of their merchandise. Novo Nordisk’s competitor, Eli Lilly, has an analogous providing for vials of its weight reduction drug, Zepbound, for $499 monthly or much less.
Novo Nordisk’s worth discount comes simply weeks earlier than the marketplace for cheaper copycat variations of Wegovy is anticipated to contract considerably.
For the previous few years, sufferers in search of decrease costs have turned to variations created by way of a drug-ingredient mixing course of often known as compounding, which is permitted by regulators when patented merchandise are in brief provide.
Sufferers typically pay about $150 monthly out of pocket for compounded variations of Wegovy. An estimated two million sufferers acquired the drug this fashion over a current one-year interval.
However final month the Meals and Drug Administration declared the Wegovy scarcity over and ordered compounders to wind down their operations by April or Might. Novo Nordisk now has the chance to scoop up displaced sufferers who had been counting on compounding and improve gross sales of its official model of the drug.
