--- title: "Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders Demands Drug Companies Cut Price of Ozempic and Other New Weight Loss Drugs" description: "President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are calling on the makers of weight loss drugs like Ozempic to make them cheaper." date: "2024-07-03" modified: "2024-07-03" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/biden-sanders-pharma-cut-ozempic-costs" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" tags: - "joe biden" - "ozempic" - "politics" - "wegovy" --- # Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders Demands Drug Companies Cut Price of Ozempic and Other New Weight Loss Drugs ![President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are calling on the makers of weight loss drugs like Ozempic to make them cheaper.]() *\Image: Kevin Dietsch via Getty\* In a dual-bylined editorial, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the makers of the uber-popular new generation of weight loss drugs to make them cheaper. The former rivals [demanded in their *USA Today* op-ed]() that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the manufacturers of the expensive diabetes and obesity injectables Ozempic and Mounjaro respectively, lower the prices of these game-changing drugs and "stop ripping off the American people." As the duo points out, American patients prescribed Novo's landmark drug Ozempic and its sister weight-loss drug Wegovy are [charged up to six times more]() than in countries with cheaper healthcare like Canada, Germany, and Denmark, a state of play which the politicians rightfully decry as "unacceptable." The same goes for Lilly's Mounjaro, which [runs about $1,100 per month]() and which, like Novo's drugs, is often [not covered by insurance](). While this rare joint Biden and Sanders statement certainly makes a salient argument, the fact remains that this prescription pricing inequity is not only a hallmark of the American healthcare system, but that the pair — and the president in particular — could do a lot more than publish a righteous editorial to make these drugs more affordable. As the powerful pair points out, the Biden administration [enacted the Inflation Reduction Act](), a 2022 law that allowed for the first time Medicare to negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, which led to [lowered costs of Lilly-manufactured insulin](). Similarly, the federal government earlier this year [negotiated down the cost of inhalers]() from more than $600 per unit to just $35. While those industry deals were indeed a net positive for consumers of those lifesaving drugs, there's much bolder action the president could take — and one in particular that we witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic that changed its trajectory. As you'll likely recall, the Food and Drug Administration in late 2020 [granted emergency use authorizations]() for experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and the then-unknown German firm Moderna, which allowed the government to facilitate their manufacturing. The agency was able to do so because COVID had been declared a national public health emergency and those vaccines were [considered medical countermeasures]() to it. While emergency use authorizations have [historically been used]() in the case of biohazards and pandemics, [declaring pediatric obesity]() in particular as a national emergency has been floated in the wake of this generation of weight loss drugs as a means to broaden manufacturing of the medications. As always, [obesity is a fraught subject]() and the concept of the federal government declaring it an "emergency" would likely result in [understandable backlash](). Nevertheless, if the president and his allies were serious about putting Big Pharma's feet to the fire on drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, they have the tools to do so. Or then again, they could [nationalize healthcare](), too. **More on Ozempic:** [*Scary Counterfeit Ozempic Contains the Wrong Drug*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()