Drugmakers Raise Prices of Ozempic, Mounjaro and Hundreds of Other Drugs

livemint.com:

Drugmakers kicked off 2024 by raising the list prices for Ozempic, Mounjaro and dozens of other widely used medicines. Companies including Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic, and Eli Lilly, which sells Mounjaro, raised list prices on 775 brand-name drugs during the first half of January, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit drug-pricing analytics group. The drugmakers raised prices of their medicines by a median of 4.5%, though the prices of some drugs rose by around 10% or higher, according to the research group.

The median increase is higher than the rate of inflation, which ticked up to 3.4% in December. Among the notable increases: The price for Ozempic, a diabetes treatment that many people are taking to lose weight, went up by 3.5% to nearly $970 for a month’s supply. Mounjaro, a diabetes drug in the same class that is also widely used for weight loss, climbed 4.5% to almost $1,070 a month.

Novo Nordisk said list-price changes take into account factors such as market conditions and inflation, and its U.S. list-price increases haven’t reached above single-digit percentages since 2016. Lilly said it sets prices according to a medicine’s value, efficacy and safety.

Pharmaceutical companies generally attributed the price increases to market trends, inflation and the value the drugs provide. Some companies said the list-price changes wouldn’t affect patients’ access to the medicines. Drugmakers usually raise the list prices of their products during the first several weeks of a new year.