Ozempic maker slams Biden after the president accused the drug company of ‘ripping off’ US consumers

The company behind the popular weight loss and diabetes drug Ozempic slammed Joe Biden after he accused the pharmaceutical giant of “ripping off” US consumers with sky-high prescription prices.

President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, co-authored a scathing op-ed in USA Today on Tuesday expressing concerns over the “outrageous prices that the pharmaceutical industry charges the American people for prescription drugs.”

The Democratic leaders accused Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that makes diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, of “charging the American people unconscionably high prices for these prescription drugs.”

“Why should people in Burlington, Vermont, pay so much more than people in Copenhagen or Berlin for the same drug?” the pair wrote.

While a prescription for Ozempic in the US has an average list price of $936, it is just $83 in France, according to a 2023 KFF report.

The Democrats pointed to their legislative efforts, like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing drug costs, before pointing fingers at big pharma: “It’s not just Congress that needs to act. Prescription drug companies also must stop ripping off the American people.”

Novo Nordisk responded to the claims in a harsh rebuke, telling Politico that it was “disappointed that a very difficult and complex problem is being oversimplified and mischaracterized for political purposes.”

“Each country has its own health care system and making isolated and limited comparisons ignores this fundamental concern,” a company spokesperson told the outlet.

Ozempic’s price “has decreased approximately 40 percent since launch and over 80 percent of Americans