Novo Nordisk will cut the price of its blockbuster weight loss medication Wegovy to $499 per month for certain patients who pay using their own money instead of going through insurance, the drug maker said on Wednesday.
The move could cause more patients to start taking the drug. But the impact stands to be limited, because the decision does not lower prices for patients who get their health insurance through government programs or for employers that are struggling with the huge costs of medications like Wegovy, which have revolutionized the treatment of obesity.
To be eligible for the reduced price, patients must be uninsured or commercially insured on plans that don’t cover the drug. Previously, the drug maker had offered a coupon to such patients allowing them to get a month’s supply of the drug for $650; Wednesday’s move translates into savings of $150 per month for such patients.
The new offering is not available to tens of millions of Americans who get their insurance through government programs like Medicare and Medicaid — a demographic that largely lacks insurance coverage for weight loss drugs like Wegovy. To get Novo Nordisk’s drug, these patients must generally pay $1,300 or more per month out of pocket at a pharmacy.
Novo Nordisk will offer the discounted product through an online pharmacy that will send prescriptions to patients through the mail — a strategy that drug makers are increasingly using to take more control of the distribution of their products. Novo Nordisk’s competitor, Eli Lilly, has a similar offering for vials of its weight loss drug, Zepbound, for $499 per month or less.
Novo Nordisk’s price reduction comes just weeks before the market for cheaper copycat versions of Wegovy is expected to contract substantially.
For the past few years, patients seeking lower prices have turned to versions created through a drug-ingredient mixing process known as compounding, which is permitted by regulators when patented products are in short supply.
Patients often pay about $150 per month out of pocket for compounded versions of Wegovy. An estimated two million patients got the drug this way over a recent one-year period.
But last month the Food and Drug Administration declared the Wegovy shortage over and ordered compounders to wind down their operations by April or May. Novo Nordisk now has the opportunity to scoop up displaced patients who had been relying on compounding and increase sales of its official version of the drug.
