President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) continued their calls for lower drug prices in an op-ed published Tuesday, citing the high cost of weight-loss products made by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
Biden and Sanders echoed common criticisms of pharmaceutical companies charging the U.S. significantly more for prescription drugs compared to peer countries in the op-ed Published in the USA today.
They pointed to Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, for which the U.S. pays up to six times the price compared to what countries like Canada and Germany pay.
“It is certainly not the patriotic duty of Americans to pay high drug prices at home so that others abroad can enjoy the fair prices to which all Americans are entitled,” they wrote.
The joint op-ed comes after Sanders and Biden appeared to bury the hatchet earlier this year over the senator’s criticism of the White House for what he argued was a lack of substantial action on combating drug prices. Sanders spoke at the White House in April to celebrate the progress made, although he added in his remarks at the time that it was still “not enough.”
The pair cited actions the Biden administration has taken to counteract high drug costs, such as passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which capped prescription drug spending for Medicare beneficiaries and allowed the program to negotiate drug prices for the first time. turn.
Biden and Sanders opined that the benefits conferred by the IRA should be expanded to reach everyone.
“At a time when many Americans face a myriad of chronic illnesses, no one in our country should be forced to pay more than $2,000 a year for the prescription medications they need, not just the elderly,” they wrote.
One of the main reasons the US pays more for medicines than other nations is due to a lack of price control strategies, as health policy organizations like the Community Fund observed previously. Medicare drug price negotiations are one such strategy that the US is now using.
The op-ed also cited the pressure campaigns on drug manufacturers that Sanders carried out as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as consequential actions in reducing drug costs. Novo Nordisk is currently the subject of Sanders’ latest pressure campaign, with the company’s CEO, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, scheduled to testify before the senator’s committee in September.
Biden and Sanders wrote that Novo Nordisk scientists “deserve great credit” for developing Ozempic and Wegovy, both forms of semaglutide.
“But as important as these medicines are, they will do no good to the millions of patients who cannot afford them,” they wrote. “Furthermore, if the prices of these medicines are not substantially reduced, they have the potential to bankrupt the American healthcare system. We will not allow that to happen.”
They noted that if just half of American adults with obesity took drugs like Wegovy, it would cost $5 billion more than what Americans spent on all prescription drugs in 2022.
Biden and Sanders have promised to “do everything in our power” to reduce drug costs if manufacturers like Novo Nordisk don’t “end their greed.”
The Hill has reached out to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly for comment.
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