Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, announced Tuesday that he will hold a vote on whether to issue a subpoena to a senior Novo Nordisk executive testify about the high cost of Ozempic and Wegovy in the US
The vote to subpoena Doug Langa, the multinational’s executive vice president of North American operations, will take place on June 18, according to Sanders. The senator said in his announcement Tuesday that “we look forward to their presence at the hearing on July 10.”
Sanders, who is running with Democrats, turned his attention to a class of drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity called GLP-1 agonists earlier this year after running pressure campaigns that appeared to influence government measures. industry to reduce the costs of insulin and asthma medications.
He launched an investigation in April into the “scandalously high prices” of semaglutide products from Novo Nordisk, Ozempic and Wegovy. The main issue at hand is Sanders’ questions about why Novo Nordisk charges patients in the US “up to 10 to 15 times more” for these products than its counterparts in other Western countries like Canada and Germany.
“The American people – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – are fed up with paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. It is not acceptable to me or the American people that we continue to be defrauded by giant pharmaceutical companies that make huge profits every year while charging us exorbitant prices,” Sanders said.
The HELP chairman stated that Novo Nordisk “repeatedly denied” the committee’s requests to attend a hearing. The company rejected these accusations.
“Each time the president has made a request to Novo Nordisk, we have responded and cooperated,” a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said in a statement.
“On several occasions, we have communicated our CEO’s willingness to testify and offered various dates for a hearing,” they added. “Based on our continued cooperation, we feel that issuing a subpoena is unnecessary. We are committed to a hearing that aligns with the committee’s practices established by the Chairman and to developing meaningful solutions to improve patient access and affordability .”
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