 |
|
|
|||||
Prices are falling for the popular obesity treatments Wegovy and Zepbound, but steady access to the drugs remains challenging.The medications still amount to around $500 per month for those without insuranceout of reach for many patients. And even for people with insurance, coverage remains uneven.“The medications should be available, the question is at what price and can people sustain that,” said Matt Maciejewski, a Duke University professor who studies obesity treatment coverage.Doctors say the situation forces them to get creative in treating patients, but there’s hope that prices may fall more in the future. The drugs are still in high demand Wegovy and Zepbound are part of a wave of obesity medications known as GLP-1 receptor agonists that have soared in popularity.Zepbound brought in $2.3 billion in U.S. sales during this year’s first quarter, making it one of drugmaker Eli Lilly’s best sellers.Novo Nordisk says Wegovy has about 200,000 weekly prescriptions in the U.S., where it brought in nearly $1.9 billion in first-quarter sales. Insurance coverage is increasingfor some The benefits consultant Mercer says more businesses with 500 or more employees are adding coverage of the injected drugs for their workers and family members.And Novo says 85% of its patients who have coverage in the U.S. pay $25 or less per month.Plus some patients with diabetes can get coverage of the GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Mounjaro from Novo and Lilly that are approved to treat that condition.But most state and federally funded Medicaid programs don’t cover the drugs for obesity and neither does Medicare, the federal program mainly for people age 65 and older.Even the plans that cover the drugs often pay only a portion of the bill, exposing patients to hundreds of dollars in monthly costs, said Dr. Beverly Tchang.Drugmakers offer help with these out-of-pocket costs, but that assistance can be limited.“Coverage is not the same as access,” said Tchang, a New York-based doctor who serves as a paid adviser to both Novo and Lilly. But coverage remains inconsistent Bill-payers like employers are nervous about drugs that might be used by a lot of people indefinitely.Some big employers have dropped coverage of the drugs due to the expense. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, also are starting to pick one brand over the other as they negotiate deals with the drugmakers.One of the nation’s largest PBMs, run by CVS Health, dropped Zepbound from its national formulary, or list of covered drugs, on July 1 in favor of Wegovy.That forced Tchang to figure out another treatment plan for several patients, many of whom took Zepbound because it made them less nauseous.Dr. Courtney Younglove’s office sends prospective patients a video link showing them how to check their insurer’s website for coverage of the drugs before they visit.“Then some of them just cancel their appointment because they don’t have coverage,” the Overland Park, Kansas, doctor said. Cheaper compounded drugs are still being sold Compounding pharmacies and other entities were allowed to make off-brand, cheaper copies of Wegovy and Zepbound when there was a shortage of the drugs. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined earlier this year that the shortage had ended.That should have ended the compounded versions, but there is an exception: Some compounding is permitted when a drug is personalized for the patient.The health care company Hims & Hers Health offers compounded doses of semaglutide, the drug behind Wegovy, that adjust dose levels to help patients manage side effects. Hims says these plans start at $165 a month for 12 months, with customers paying in full upfront.It’s a contentious issue. Eli Lilly has sued pharmacies and telehealth companies trying to stop them from selling compounded versions of its products.Novo recently ended a short-lived partnership with Hims to sell Wegovy because the telehealth company continued compounding. Novo says the compounded versions of its drug put patient safety at risk because ingredients are made by foreign suppliers not monitored by US regulators.Hims says it checks all ingredients to make sure they meet U.S. quality and safety standards. It also uses a third-party lab to verify that a drug’s strength is accurately labeled. Prices have dropped Both drugmakers are selling most of their doses for around $500 a month to people without insurance, a few hundred dollars less than some initial prices.Even so, that expense would eat up about 14% of the average annual per person income in the U.S., which is around $43,000.There are some factors that may suppress prices over time. Both companies are developing pill versions of their treatments. Those could hit the market in the next year or so, which might drive down prices for the older, injectable doses.Younglove said some of her patients save as much as 15% by getting their doses shipped from a pharmacy in Canada. They used to get them from an Israeli pharmacy until the Canadians dropped their prices.She says competition like this, plus the introduction of pill versions, will pressure U.S. prices.“I think price wars are going to drive it down,” she said. “I think we are in the early stages. I have hope.” The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
TikTok is building a new version of its app for users in the United States ahead of a planned sale of the app to a group of investors, The Information reported on Sunday, citing unnamed sources. This comes as U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he will start talking to China on Monday or Tuesday about a possible TikTok deal. He said the United States “pretty much” has a deal on the sale of the TikTok short-video app. TikTok has developed a plan to launch the new app to U.S. app stores on September 5, the report said. Last month, Trump extended to September 17 a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of TikTok. The report added that TikTok users will eventually have to download the new app to be able to continue using the service, although the existing app will work until March of next year, though the timeline could change. TikTok did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. A deal had been in the works earlier this year to spin off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new U.S.-based firm, majority-owned and operated by U.S. investors. That was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump said the United States will probably have to get a deal approved by China. Mrinmay Dey, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Wall Street is pointing to a lower open Monday as the Trump administration steps up pressure on trading partners to quickly make deals before a Wednesday deadline.The U.S. will warn trading partners that higher tariffs could kick in Aug. 1.Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.3% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped less than 0.1%. Nasdaq futures slid 0.5%.Trump and his top trade advisers said over the weekend that the president could extend the tariff deadline if countries were making concessions and negotiating in good faith.“We expect markets to be volatile into the 9-July deadline when the 90-day pause on President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs expires for non-China trading partners,” the Nomura Group wrote in a commentary.The near-term outlook will likely hinge on several key factors like the extent to which trading partners are included in Trump letters, the rate of tariffs, and the effective date of such tariffs, according to Nomura.“With the July 9 tariff deadline fast approaching, all eyes are trained on Washington, scanning for signs of escalation or retreat. The path forward isn’t clear, but the terrain is littered with risk,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.In equities trading, Tesla tumbled 6.5% as the feud between CEO Elon Musk and Trump reignited over the weekend. Musk, once a top donor and ally of Trump, announced that he was forming a third political party in protest over the Republicans’ spending bill that passed late last week.Trump criticized Musk in a social media post, suggesting that Musk’s disappointment in the bill was because the legislation ended an “electric vehicle mandate,” which Trump says Musk knew was coming.Investors fear that Musk’s companies, which receive significant subsidies from the federal government, could suffer further if his feud with Trump continues to escalate.Molina Healthcare tumbled 6% after the insurer lowered its profit guidance due to rapidly accelerating costs. UnitedHealth Group also recently reported a spike in costs that forced it to cut its forecast, sending its stock tumbling in April.Oil prices fluctuated after OPEC+ agreed on Saturday to raise production in August by 548,000 barrels per day.U.S. benchmark crude was essentially unchanged early Monday at $67 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 40 cents to $68.70 per barrel.At midday in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.1%, while Germany’s DAX added 0.8%. In Paris, the CAC 40 was up 0.2%.In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 shed 0.6% to 39,587. 68 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index edged down 0.1% to 23,887.83.South Korea’s KOSPI index rose 0.2% to 3,059.47 while the Shanghai Composite Index edged 0.1% higher to 3,473.13. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 fell 0.2% to 8,589.30.In currency trading Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to 145.42 Japanese yen from 144.44 yen. The euro edged lower to $1.1727 from $1.1779. Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||