Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy, has hired a lobbying firm to convince Congress to allow Medicare to cover the drugs for weight loss, Politico reported June 16.
Novo Nordisk hired firm Arnold & Porter to vouch for the drugs on Capitol Hill. It is the second lobbying contract specifically for weight loss drug coverage signed this year, with Eli Lilly hiring a firm in January to lobby for its drug Mounjaro, a diabetes drug used off-label for weight loss, according to Politico's reporting.
Novo Nordisk has lobbied for Medicare coverage of weight loss treatments since 2013, according to previous reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
Federal law currently bars Medicare from paying for any weight loss drugs. Novo Nordisk's Ozempic is approved to treat diabetes but prescribed off-label for weight loss, while Wegovy is approved for weight loss. Both drugs contain semaglutide.
Legislation to cover the drugs has stalled in Congress. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, is working with the Congressional Budget Office to find ways to bring down the cost of the program before reintroducing legislation that would require Medicare to cover obesity treatments, The Wall Street Journal reported in April.
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy come with a steep price tag, costing upward of $10,000 per year without insurance.
If 10 percent of people with obesity covered by Medicare were prescribed a brand-name version of semaglutide, a type of GLP-1 drug, the drug would cost the program $26.8 billion annually, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March.