Novo Nordisk will reduce the price of a comprehensive weight loss to 499 dollars per month for some patients who pay their own money instead of going to insurance, the drug maker He said on Wednesday.
This step can cause more patients to start taking the medicine. But the effect is limited, because the decision does not reduce prices for patients who obtain health insurance through government programs or employers who struggle with the huge costs of drugs such as Wegovy, which revolutionized the treatment of obesity.
In order to be eligible to obtain low price, patients must be not believers or commercially believe in plans that do not cover the drug. Previously, he was the drug maker A voucher offered For such patients who allow them to obtain a month’s supply of the medicine for $ 650; Moving Wednesday translates into savings of $ 150 per month for these patients.
The new offer is not available for tens of millions of Americans who get their insurance through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid – a demographic that is largely lacking in insurance coverage of weight loss drugs such as Wegovy. For Novo Nordisk, these patients should generally pay $ 1300 or more per month from his pocket in a pharmacy.
Novo Nordisk will provide the reduced product through an online pharmacy that will send recipes for patients via mail – a strategy that drug makers are increasingly used to control the distribution of their products. Nofo Nordsk competitor, Elie Lily, He has a similar offer For drug loss bottles, Zepbound, for $ 499 per month or less.
The Novo Nordisk rates just weeks of the market comes through the license versions of Wegovy significantly.
Over the past few years, patients looking for low prices have turned into versions created through the process of mixing drugs known as the vehicle, which the organizers are allowed when the patented products are not available.
Patients often pay about $ 150 per month outside his pocket for the complex versions of Wegov. Estimate Two million patients I got the medicine in this way during one year.
However, last month, the Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of Weghoufi ordered vehicles to cancel their operations by April or May. Novo Nordisk now has the opportunity to raise patients who were relying on doubling and increasing the sales of its official version of the drug.
