Patients in China will be able to purchase the blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy for 1,400 yuan, or about $193, just a fraction of the US list price of $1,349, according to media reports.
The price in China is in line with pricing elsewhere outside of the US. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted in a September Senate hearing, Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, is sold for $265 in Canada, $186 in Denmark, $137 in Germany, and just $92 in the United Kingdom. In the hearing, Sanders and other senators grilled Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jørgensen on the “outrageously high prices” in the US of Wegovy and the company’s other popular GLP-1 drug, Ozempic, used for diabetes.
“What we are dealing with today is not just an issue of economics, it is not just an issue of corporate greed. It is a profound moral issue,” Sanders said in opening remarks about the prices of the highly effective drugs.
About 42 percent of US adults have obesity—that’s more than 100 million people—and 9 percent (more than 22 million) have severe obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yale epidemiologists have estimated that more than 42,000 deaths could be averted each year in the US if Wegovy and other GLP-1 class weight-loss drugs were more accessible.
Novo Nordisk did not immediately respond to a request for comment about pricing from Ars.
In China, survey data has suggested that more than half of adults in the country have overweight or obesity, with rates expected to continue rising. Novo Nordisk estimates that 180 million of the country’s 1.4 billion people have obesity.
Wegovy is not covered by China’s national health insurance program.
