Diet pills|Novo Nordisk agreed to reduce the price of diet pills by about 70 percent. Prescription drugs are often significantly more expensive in the United States than in Europe.
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In the United States, Novo Nordisk’s diabetes and weight loss drugs have been paid up to seven times the price compared to Finnish ones.
The federally supported health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid reached an agreement with the drug company Novo Nordisk to reduce the price of drugs by more than 70 percent.
President Donald Trump has made the cheapening of medicines one of his important goals and has threatened European pharmaceutical manufacturers with tariffs.
Americans patients and publicly funded health care programs have paid up to seven times the price for diabetes and weight loss drugs from the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk compared to Finns.
Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide drug is sold under three different brand names. Rybelsus is an oral diabetes medicine. Ozempic is a once-weekly injection for diabetes and Wegovy is a once-weekly injection for weight loss.
The list price of Rybelsus and Ozempic for a month’s dose has been in the United States The Wall Street Journalin 998 dollars (864 euros) per month and 1,349 dollars (1,168 euros) for Wegovy.
Federal programs have paid $959 per month for medication.
in Finland the maximum dose of 14 milligrams of Rybelsus taken in pill form costs 117 euros per month, or about one-seventh of the list price in the United States. Ozempic costs 112 euros per month.
Wegovy’s maintenance dose of 2.4 milligrams costs 291 euros per month in Finland.
Rybelsus and Ozempic are also used for weight loss. However, the maximum dose in Wegovy is higher than in the other two.
Federal funded health insurance programs announced on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with Novo Nordisk to reduce the prices of semaglutide products.
Starting in 2027, the price of all three drugs in Medicaid and Medicare will be $274 (€327) per month, which means a reduction of more than 70 percent.
Medicare is a federally funded health insurance program primarily for the elderly. Medicaid is a program especially for the needy that is funded by both the federal government and the states.
In 2024, health insurance programs spent more than 15 billion dollars (13 billion euros) on Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide drugs. The amount includes the users’ deductible.
Medicines were used by more than two million patients belonging to the programs.
President Donald Trump has taken lowering the price of medicines as one of its important goals. The prices of prescription drugs in the United States have typically been many times higher than in Europe.
Trump has threatened European manufacturers with heavy tariffs unless prices drop. Denmark’s Novo Nordisk has lowered the price of obesity drugs already in October for those patients for whom health insurance does not cover the drugs.
The price dropped to $349 per month, according to The Wall Street Journal. Medicare for the elderly also gets medicines at a lower price than the current list price.
“In our work for a healthier America, we are taking advantage of all the tools available to lower health care costs for seniors,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy jr said in the release.
In addition to Novo Nordisk’s diabetes and weight loss drugs, the agreement announced on Tuesday covered fourteen other widely used drugs, including cancer and asthma drugs. According to Kennedy, the savings brought by the agreements is about 12 billion dollars a year.
In several In European countries, drug prices are negotiated at the national level with pharmaceutical companies, which has forced the pharmaceutical companies to compromise on prices. In Finland, outpatient medicine is negotiated by the price board Hila.
In Finland, Novo Nordisk has applied for Kela reimbursement for its semaglutide drugs also for the treatment of obesity. So far, medicines are only replaceable in the treatment of diabetes.
So far, Hila has not announced the start of price negotiations.