During an interview last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took aim at Novo Nordisk, the creator of the drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, slamming the company for “ripping off the American people.”
The comments from Sanders came during an interview with CNN after Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, the CEO of Novo Nordisk, agreed to testify before Congress in a hearing scheduled for September, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions announced.
Sanders said that his first question for the CEO would be why he charges more for his medications in the US than he does in other countries.
“This is absurd,” Sanders said. “It is clear that Novo Nordisk is ripping off the American people.”
After the hearing was announced, Novo Nordisk said that Jørgensen and Sanders had “a productive call and agreed to find a mutually acceptable date for a hearing.”
Sanders said on Tuesday that he was still working to set an exact date with the company, but he expected it to be in mid-September.
When it comes to how he plans on getting the company to reduce the price of its diabetes and weight loss medication, Sanders said he’s going to put them in the spotlight.
“I think enough public pressure may result in them lowering their prices substantially, which is obviously what my goal is,” Sanders said. “This is a huge issue because it is likely that Ozempic and Wegovy may end up being the most lucrative product that the pharmaceutical industry has ever developed.”
An investigation from April into Novo Nordisk’s pricing found that it charges around $1,300 a month for Wegovy in the United States. However, the report found that in Denmark, the drug is priced at $186 a month, $137 in Germany, and $92 in the United Kingdom.
However, there is little Congress can do to affect the drug prices, and Sanders acknowledged this, saying, “This is the system. It’s a corrupt system.”
“It’s a system controlled by a large pharmaceutical industry, which makes massive amounts of campaign contributions,” he said. “And it’s a system which enables the drug companies to make huge profits, while 1 out of 4 Americans cannot afford to buy the prescription drugs that doctors prescribe.”