• by Tanya Gazdik , June 12, 2024

A health panel chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders will vote to subpoena Novo Nordisk to testify on pricing for its anti-obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

“The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which is investigating the drugs' costs, said in a statement that at its June 18 meeting it will weigh a subpoena requiring Novo Nordisk Inc President Doug Langa to testify at a July 10 hearing,” according to Reuters. 

The U.S. prices of Wegovy and Ozempic are far higher than the prices paid in other countries, Sanders alleges. The committee sought voluntary testimony, but the company had refused, he says. 

"The American people — Democrats, Republicans and independents — are sick and tired of paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs," Sanders said, according to Axios. 

The committee has reached out repeatedly to Novo Nordisk to request their voluntary attendance to discuss why they are charging Americans up to 10 or 15 times more for the exact same product sold in other countries, Sanders says. 

A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the company had offered a range of dates to voluntarily testify alongside other stakeholders in the drug pricing system and that a subpoena is “unnecessary,” according to Reuters.

“Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, turned his eye to a class of medications used for treating diabetes and obesity called GLP-1 agonists earlier this year after carrying out pressure campaigns that seemed to influence industry moves to lower the costs of insulin and asthma medications,” according to The Hill. “He launched an investigation in April into the ‘outrageously high prices’ of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovy.”

Sanders has urged Denmark to rein in Novo Nordisk, which is its most valuable company.

Sanders says he admires Denmark's health and welfare system and is appealing to Danes’ ingrained sense of social justice to "help the American people do something about the obesity and diabetes epidemic we are facing,”  according to Forbes.