Currently they cannot manufacture enough to cover demand at $1000/ month. Why would the price come down before they can supply current demand?
Because in exchange they could unlock a bulk order from e.g. the U.S. government. That in turn could unlock economies of scale that let them price competitors out of the market.
There is competition, I see ads on Facebook and Instagram for it all the time, there are clinics all over where I live advertising Semaglutide treatment for weight loss.
It's like when COVID hit and somehow "Zoom" became the shorthand for online video meetings even though there were (and still are) a ton of options for that functionality on the market.
You don’t think having the heft of the U.S. government behind one of those parties will help with that access?
When the one being disrupted is a European pharma? Yes.
Have you been around our lawmaking institutions, or lawmakers? The idea that we'd sandbag something like Ozempic, which by the way is being negotiated for mass deployment through Medicare [1], to save the likes of Frito-Lay is nuts. Even if we reduce American politics to the lobbyist-conspiracy model, which isn't terribly predictive but whatever, you're pitting big pharma against chips and fast food.
[1] https://qz.com/wegovy-ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-medicare-rul...
Are there competitors or are they under patent protection?
They're not buying generics, and even at a 20% discount will get hosed compared to the $7 generics
Once demand is met, there starts to be an argument for lowering the price and growing the market. Getting the price down to half the current price is when we start to see health benefits that outweigh the cost of treatment and an obvious win for insurance companies to start covering it for everyone.
But until there is supply, lowering cost just means more people fighting over the same supply, not more people getting access.