Novo Nordisk slashes Wegovy price for patients lacking insurance benefits | Hacker News Reader

Novo Nordisk slashes Wegovy price for patients lacking insurance benefits

washingtonpost.com

24 pointsbookofjoe10 comments

To contextualize this: After this "slash" it is still more expensive in the US ($499/month) than any other Western country by triple or more, even unsubsidized.

- Japan/Canada/Switzerland: $150~ USD/month

- Germany/Netherlands: $100~ USD/month

- UK/Sweden/Australia: $90~ USD/month

- France: $80~ USD/month

So when people blame insurance for stuff being expensive, just remember this is straight from the pharma to your front door with zero insurance/PBMs and they're still charging the US 3x+ more than other Western countries.

The main reason why is that other countries won't allow drugs to be sold AT ALL in their markets without negotiating drug prices, regardless of buyer (e.g. private, government, individual). The US doesn't do this.

Semaglutide is cheap to make, and most of the research 20~ years old. The biggest costs come from auto injector pens which aren't required for safe effective delivery (just ask diabetics pre-2015).

Current price in Sweden should be about $300-320/mo? Looked this up last week. Starting dosage is lower. You you can find the prices, even on prescription only meds with fixed pricing, on the state-owned pharmacy's website (monopoly until 2009).

https://www.apoteket.se/sok/?q=Wegovy

Let me know if it's geoblocked.

10.14 SEK = 1 USD after the USD losing a bit this week so unusually handy conversion :D

Coincidentally ~$300/year is the cap for subsidized (prescribed) medications.

It does surprise me that our President, the great deal maker, shut down the semaglutide knockoffs like Hims.com without negotiating a deal on the namebrand version for the American people.

$99/mo from compounders.

It always bothers me when people generalize other countries. My understanding is that there is a lot of difference across Europe. Some only have State insurance Some have private insurance in parallel. I would love to see a breakdown by country and their price negotiation scheme.

“In order to participate in this program, patient must have a valid prescription for the brand being filled.

…

Patient is not eligible if enrolled in any federal or state health care program with prescription drug coverage, such as Medicaid, Medicare, Medigap, VA, DOD, TRICARE, or any similar federal or state health care program (each a Government Program), or where prohibited by law.

…

Patients may participate in this program if they are uninsured or have commercial insurance. If the patient has commercial insurance and fulfills their prescription through this program, the transaction will process outside of any insurance. Patient payments will not count toward any deductibles and cannot be applied to a patient’s maximum out-of-pocket costs.

…

This offer is valid only in the United States and its territories, unless prohibited by law.“

https://www.novocare.com/eligibility/obesity-pharmacy.html

https://archive.ph/wqnoP

Sounds like a move out of Martin Shkrelis playbook.

I thought Martin Shkrelis dramatically increased prices instead of reducing/slashing them?

The article seems to avoid talking about it but it appears they "reduced" prices by reducing the cost of something they basically weren't selling while banning generic alternatives that were presumably cheaper.

I googled and the firm mentioned in the article seems to have been selling at it at 200 a month, so 2/5ths of the new "cheaper" price the article headlines with, or 150% increase for customers using that sevice, more than doubling what they pay.

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