Novo Nordisk criticised for high cost of blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy

Denmark's Institute for Rational Pharmacotherapy is urging doctors to restrict prescriptions of Wegovy. And in the US, Michigan’s largest health insurer will drop coverage of the drug

Thu, 13 Jun, 2024 - 16:19

Sara Sjolin and Naomi Kresge

A Danish drug oversight panel has advised doctors to restrict prescriptions of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy, saying the medicine is so expensive it would cost more than €800,000 to prevent a single heart attack, stroke, or other severe cardiac problem.

Wegovy should not be doctors’ first choice, and they should only start a “few” patients on the treatment, the Danish health authority’s Institute for Rational Pharmacotherapy stated in a report on June 6.

The institute is influential but doctors have wide leeway to disregard its advice.

Denmark, Novo’s home market, is among a growing number of places where experts are pushing back on Wegovy’s cost despite its impact on weight loss and a host of related ailments.

In the US, Michigan’s largest health insurer said on Wednesday it will drop coverage of the new obesity drugs starting in January.

Weight-loss drug 'could be profitably made for as little as €4.40 a month'

Though the treatment works well for weight-loss, patients also shed muscle, and there’s little data on long-term effects for those who stop the medicine, the Danish institute warned.

A record number of Danes are being treated with Wegovy. Almost 80,000 people in the country of 6m are using the drug, which has been on the market since 2022.

Wegovy’s impact beyond weight loss — on heart disease and other ailments linked to obesity — is a core part of Novo’s argument for why insurers should cover the drug.

In Denmark, most patients pay for it themselves, with public insurance picking up the tab only for the most serious cases. Even so, the health authority argued that the cost doesn’t match the benefits. To avoid a cardiovascular event, 65 heart patients would need to be treated for four years, the report said, bringing the total cost of preventing a single heart attack to about 6m kroner (€804,000).

Novo disputed the conclusions, stating that other experts including the US Food and Drug Administration view its clinical trial results differently. Novo said it would review the report and “hope to enter into a dialog with the Danish Health Authority.”