Novo Nordisk offers diabetes drug Ozempic for steep money discount

Novo Nordisk on Monday said it now offers cash-paying U.S. patients its blockbuster diabetes treatment Ozempic for lower than half its monthly list price, as drugmakers face mounting political pressure to lower prices within the country.

Patients pays $499 in money per thirty days for 3 dose sizes of Ozempic. They will get the value through platforms including the drug’s official website, Novo Nordisk’s patient assistance program and the corporate’s recently launched direct-to-consumer online pharmacy, the latter of which also ships the injection on to patients’ homes. 

Drug savings company GoodRx can even offer Ozempic and its weight reduction counterpart Wegovy for $499 per thirty days, making the discounts available at greater than 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, in line with a Novo Nordisk release.

Novo Nordisk’s cash-pay offering will expand access to eligible Type 2 diabetes patients who do not have insurance coverage for the weekly injection. In March, the corporate began to supply Wegovy for half its list price to cash-paying Americans. 

Ozempic’s list price before insurance and other rebates is nearly $1,350 per thirty days, and has been a frequent goal of political and public blowback in recent times. The brand new offer comes after President Donald Trump in July sent separate letters to Novo Nordisk and 16 other drugmakers, calling on them to take steps to lower medication prices within the U.S. Amongst other suggested actions, he urged them to adopt models that sell medicines on to consumers or businesses. 

The efforts aim to make Ozempic and Wegovy available to more people, while also ensuring that patients use the branded medication as a substitute of cheaper compounded copycats. Those drugs exploded in popularity during a now-resolved U.S. shortage of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, the lively ingredient in each drugs.

While Ozempic “is well covered within the US, let’s not forget that there are some patients who pay out-of-pocket for this vital medicine,” Dave Moore, executive vp of U.S. operations and global business development at Novo Nordisk, said in the discharge. “We imagine that if even a single patient feels the necessity to turn to potentially unsafe and unapproved knockoff alternatives, that is one too many.”

Eli Lilly has similarly moved to slash the value of its popular obesity and diabetes drugs for cash-paying patients. The 2 corporations are fighting to dominate the marketplace for so-called GLP-1s, which mimic certain gut hormones to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar.