Elon Musk and Bernie Sanders say they agree on one thing – cheaper Ozempic

Sanders, a champion of Europe’s social market model, recently joined President Biden in urging Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk to lower the prices of its popular treatments.

The failure to provide affordable access to life-saving drugs, particularly for diet-induced diabetes and obesity, claims more than 43,000 lives annually — deaths that could be prevented if the prices of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy were lower.

“Tackling obesity greatly reduces the risk of other diseases, especially diabetes, and improves quality of life. We have to find a way to make appetite suppressants available to anyone who wants them,” Sanders said Tuesday, quoting the Tesla CEO earlier this month. “And Mr. Musk is right.”

The cent-millionaire has repeatedly clashed with the senator over income inequality, with Musk once posting how he forgets Sanders isn’t dead yet. But it’s hard to fight someone who agrees with you.

Musk himself fought a constant battle with the scale, being shamed by his own father before opting to take Wegovy from Novo Nordisk. to help with chemical weight loss.

“I’m really with Bernie on this one,” Musk posted on Tuesday.

74 cents of every dollar in sales goes to middlemen

Sanders spoke at a subcommittee hearing that called Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen as a witness. By the senator’s estimate, Jørgensen pays US patients nine times what he charges his German colleagues without list price discounts.

Nearly three-quarters of the revenue Novo Nordisk has generated from its $50 billion in total sales since the 2018 launch of the so-called GLP-1 drug semaglutide (marketed under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy) comes from the market American, one digit. Jørgensen did not contest.

“The United States is Novo Nordisk’s cash cow for Ozempic and Wegovy,” Sanders said. “All we’re saying, Mr. Jørgensen, is to treat the American people the same way you treat people around the world — stop cheating on us.”

Jørgensen said his company is investing $30 billion to expand production and lower the cost of the drug.

Insteadblamed pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the middlemen who negotiate prices with customers in a US health system that is incentivized to keep costs high at the expense of patient outcomes.

“They get a fee based on the list price — so the higher the list price, the higher the fee they get for the same job,” he said, adding, on average, 74 cents of every dollar of revenue Novo Nordisk makes in the US goes into the pockets of PBMs and insurers.

“In our experience, products that come with a low list price have less coverage. It’s less attractive.”

When Sanders countered that he had obtained a written commitment from three major PBMs that they would not reduce or drop coverage of Novo Nordisk’s drugs if the company lowered its list prices, the CEO was skeptical.

“This is new information to me.” Jørgensen replied. “I don’t know under what conditions such a promise comes. I didn’t see any of that.”

When contacted by wealth reached for comment, a spokesman for Novo Nordisk reiterated its CEO’s comment that no company can fix America’s health care system alone.

However, it looked forward to continuing to work with policymakers for “meaningful solutions” for patients who rely on its medicines.

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