The price of weight loss drugs in different countries

Source

154 points · 15 comments · view on lemmy.world

15 Comments

minorkeys@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 295d (3 replies)

Price gouging is just normal business practices in America.

oneser@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 295d (2 replies)

It is more likely that the national healthcare systems eat up a large portion of the cost difference. It is not clear from the dataset however if this is purchase cost or end-user cost.

Prescription medication in Australia for example is heavily subsidised.

Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 295d

It's more that the national health systems can negotiate prices for the whole country. If you can go to the pharma companies and say you're selling this drug for $100 or you're not selling the drug at all here then they're much more open to lowering the price.

Health insurance companies will also negotiate far below the sticker price listed above so they can go to their customers and say look this drug costs $900 but we got them down to only $200, aren't we a useful company and not a bunch of leeches? The problem is this makes it so the pharma companies have no incentive to lower sticker price as they'd only be missing out on the uninsured who aren't going to get it anyway, and the insurance companies like a high sticker price because it makes their "discounts" seem larger.

turdas@suppo.fi · 4 pts · 295d

Finland isn't on that list, but the purchase cost here before any socialized healthcare rebates is ~110€ for a month's dose of Ozempic, which is in line with the other European countries, so presumably all the prices there are before any rebates.

itkovian@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 295d

Ah, yes, the Big Parma mafia of the US.

MurrayL@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 295d (4 replies)

These prices are from 2023; the data is wildly out of date.

JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 295d (3 replies)

Wildly out of date? I broke out the abacus and it looks like the data is two years old.

Unless there's been a change by an order of magnitude, it's not that wild.

yes_this_time@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 295d

It's not a mature market. A lot of changes happening fast. 2023 seems quite stale.

MurrayL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 294d (1 reply)

Besides availability (the table doesn’t show any prices in the UK for things that are now available like Mounjaro, for example), prices have risen dramatically across the board - in many cases they have doubled or more.

But please, don’t let that get in the way of leaving a needlessly snarky response to something you’re clearly ignorant about.

JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d

From that second sentence it seems like you got the impression I was antagonizing you? I wasn't. I simply don't think it's accurate to label the changes with inaccurate descriptors like 'wild'. In a situation where the price changes are wild, I personally would leave a source, but that's neither here nor there.

Did I make a comment about semantics into a bit of a joke? Sure. Nothing for you to take personally though, let alone hurl an insult that has no bearing.

r00ty@kbin.life · 8 pts · 295d

It's interesting that Wegovy costs more when it's the same thing. I mean I understand it because Ozempic is meant to be prescribed only to diabetic patients. But, I think by now everyone knows people "obtain" Ozempic purely for weight loss.

Also this chart doesn't include Trulicity (dulaglutide).

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 295d

I wonder why the Mafia still bothers with smuggling cocaine into the US.

CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 295d

How available are they at that price?

In the US, you can get them easy, even for just off label stuff.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 295d
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FireWire400@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 295d (1 reply)

I guess it wouldn't be possible to import it from Australia into the US?

damo_omad@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 295d

It's not over the counter so probs not

bax2@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 295d
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