Novo Nordisk - NOVO B (Danmark)

“Legislators should cap drug prices so that companies can’t charge Americans substantially more than Europeans pay,” Kennedy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in September.

Kennedy pointed to Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s popular diabetes drug, as an example, noting how in Germany the drug costs less than one-tenth of its cost in the U.S., where the list price is around $1,000 per month.

"My experience is that people will be able to pay for it out of (their own) pocket," said Horbach. He said the ban on reimbursement by public health schemes under a 1980s law that categorises weight-loss therapies as lifestyle drugs, discriminates against people with low incomes.

Novo said prescription drugs in Germany were generally excluded from rebate or coupon promotions.

Some specialists say the lifestyle drug classification reinforces a widely held view that those with obesity and related conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure have themselves to blame.
"Patients suffer enormously from the stigma because they feel isolated, because it's a visible disease that has been unfairly associated with attributes such as laziness," said Dr. Juergen Ordemann, another surgeon and head of obesity at Berlin's Vivantes hospital chain.

Without public health insurance for obesity drugs, and very limited payments for obesity-specific psychotherapy, treatment in Germany often means surgery for the most severe cases, with a BMI of around 50.

Soaring demand for weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound, which are capable of helping patients lose up to 20% of their weight on average, has led to shortages that allowed drug compounders to produce them under U.S. regulations. Federal regulations allow compounded versions to be sold to meet demand if a drug is in shortage.