NOVO TO DEFEND GLP-1 PRICING — Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jørgensen will testify before the Senate HELP Committee this morning about — in Chair Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) words — “the outrageously high prices Novo Nordisk is charging Americans struggling with diabetes and obesity for Ozempic and Wegovy.” The hearing gives Senate Democrats one last opportunity before the November election to grill a major pharma player about the high domestic cost of prescription drugs compared to other wealthy nations. Vice President Kamala Harris has vowed to broaden the number of drugs eligible for Medicare price negotiations — and to expand the program to private insurers — if she’s elected in November, though both moves would require congressional action. Past is prologue: Sanders has used hearings with pharma execs this Congress to extract commitments to lower prices for products like asthma inhalers and insulin. However, it’s worth noting that other factors— like Medicaid rebate changes and FTC pressure — played into those decisions. Last week, Sanders hosted a panel on Capitol Hill about the cost of Novo’s GLP-1 drugs in the U.S., disclosing that CEOs of unnamed generic drugmakers told him they could manufacture and sell copycat versions of Novo's diabetes drug Ozempic for less than $100 a month and still profit. “As important and groundbreaking as these drugs may be, they will not do any good for the millions of people who cannot afford them,” he said. Advocacy groups like Public Citizen — and several congressional Democrats — have urged the Biden administration to assert executive authority to permit generic production of the drugs, though such a move would surely lead to litigation over patent exclusivity and intellectual property rights. Shot of realism: There’s little reason to think Novo would voluntarily embrace early generic competition or lower its prices. The company’s Ozempic patents are expected to prevent generic entry until the early 2030s, and the company has pointed to the role insurers and pharmacy benefit managers — the middlemen that negotiate deals between drugmakers and insurers — play in setting prices. “The complexities of the system unfortunately reduce access and affordability for many Americans,” Jørgensen said in his written statement. “We are eager to work with this Committee to address these systemic issues so that everyone who can benefit from our medicines is able to get them.” FILLING IN THE GAPS — Telehealth provider Noom, which offers both branded and off-brand compounded weight-loss medicines, unveiled a petition to policymakers today, calling for compounding pharmacies to get a “lengthy grace period” to continue filling prescriptions once the current shortage of injectable GLP-1 shortage is resolved. Under existing law, compounders can make “essentially a copy” of a drug in shortage. But once it’s back in supply, outsourcing facilities have 60 days to ramp down production, and smaller compounding pharmacies must stop making them immediately unless they’re filling customized prescriptions. “We think that these [compounded] meds are being offered … at a pricing that is supported by the market and is rational, and that if we're going to remove that affordable supply from the market, policymakers should really question the pharmaceutical companies as to how they’re going to meet the demand of the patients who are losing access to their obesity and diabetes medications,” Noom CEO Geoff Cook told Prescription Pulse.
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