Ozempic and Wegovy maker courts Black leaders in search of Medicare’s favor : Pictures

Pharmaceutical big Novo Nordisk has turned to influential Black People in pursuit of what could be a profitable victory: having Medicare cowl a brand new class of weight reduction medication, together with the corporate’s extremely sought Wegovy, which might value sufferers greater than $1,000 a month.

Throughout a convention of the Congressional Black Caucus Basis final fall — a jampacked gathering that includes outstanding Black lawmakers and President Joe Biden — Novo Nordisk sponsored a panel dialogue on weight problems for which it chosen the moderator and panelists, firm spokesperson Nicole Ferreira mentioned. The muse is a nonprofit affiliated with the Congressional Black Caucus, a strong group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Former CNN political commentator Roland Martin moderated. Black well being specialists who assist Medicare protection of medicine used to deal with weight problems served on the panel. They included Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an affiliate professor of medication at Harvard Medical Faculty. Stanford is a specialist in weight problems who has acquired consulting charges from Novo Nordisk.

Throughout the panel dialogue, Stanford informed the viewers that weight problems “is an actual illness that individuals wrestle with,” she recounted in an interview with KFF Well being Information. “We have denied folks look after weight problems once we have not for different power illnesses.”

Novo Nordisk, the main maker of so-called weight problems medication, adopted up on the September panel by sponsoring a streaming present in March hosted by Martin, throughout which company advocated for Medicare to cowl medication for weight reduction. Ferreira mentioned the corporate recommended specialists for the phase, however she didn’t title them.

These actions are a part of a broader Novo Nordisk marketing campaign to shift the general public narrative about weight problems. They open a brand new window on drugmakers’ efforts to affect customers and public coverage.

Novo Nordisk is making an attempt to reverse a 20-year-old ban on protection of medicine used for weight reduction underneath Medicare, the federal medical health insurance program primarily for folks 65 and older. Congress excluded such drugs when it established Medicare’s Half D prescription drug profit in 2003. The ban, carried out when the fen-phen eating regimen capsule debacle of the late Nineties was nonetheless recent in folks’s minds, successfully deprives drugmakers of thousands and thousands of potential clients.

Increasing the affected person pool

Medicare protection would put weight problems medication inside attain of many individuals who couldn’t in any other case afford them. It may have a multiplier impact as a result of personal insurers typically comply with Medicare’s lead.

It might be a monetary boon to Novo Nordisk and different drugmakers, together with Eli Lilly, which is in search of FDA approval for the same weight reduction drug.

Including to the associated fee, and the potential upside for the business: To maintain weight off, sufferers could should take the medication indefinitely.

Wegovy’s listing value is about $1,350 for roughly a month’s provide. Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, a drug for folks with Sort 2 diabetes that medical doctors prescribe off-label for weight problems, is priced at about $1,023 for roughly a month’s provide.

Wegovy is FDA-approved for weight reduction in adults who’ve a physique mass index of 30 or better — the definition of grownup weight problems, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention — or a BMI of at the least 27 plus at the least one weight-related medical situation, corresponding to hypertension. It is also authorized for sufferers as younger as 12 who’re deemed overweight.

In an announcement, Novo Nordisk spokesperson Allison Schneider mentioned, “We advocate for sufferers and insurance policies that assist entry to all weight problems therapies, together with protection for anti-obesity drugs in Medicare Half D.”

The corporate helps the Deal with and Cut back Weight problems Act, laws launched again in 2013, when the weight problems medication available on the market weren’t as efficient as the present crop of medicines. The invoice would overturn the Medicare protection ban. In July, a bipartisan group of lawmakers within the Home and Senate reintroduced the invoice — one thing lawmakers have completed repeatedly over the last decade.

Drug firms have lengthy used a wide range of methods to advance company pursuits, corresponding to funding so-called affected person advocacy teams targeted on particular illnesses and airing direct-to-consumer adverts that spur sufferers to ask their medical doctors about brand-name medication.

Novo Nordisk is the most important company donor to the Weight problems Motion Coalition, which says its mission is “to raise and empower these affected by weight problems.”

Novo Nordisk contributes greater than $500,000 yearly to the group, in keeping with its web site. The group’s legislative aims embrace reversing Medicare’s protection ban on weight reduction medication.

The Weight problems Motion Coalition “just isn’t influenced in any means by our huge array of supporters,” mentioned Kendall Griffey, a spokesperson for the group.

Novo Nordisk has marketed Wegovy, which the FDA authorized for weight reduction in 2021, and Ozempic, which is authorized for diabetes and prescribed off-label to deal with weight problems.

Like many giant companies, Novo Nordisk has contributed 1000’s of {dollars} yearly to nonprofits tied to totally different teams of lawmakers whereas in search of assist in Congress for its causes.

In 2021, Novo Nordisk gave between $100,000 and $399,999 to the Congressional Black Caucus Basis and between $25,000 and $49,999 to the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Research, in keeping with every nonprofit’s annual report.

The latter nonprofit, often known as APAICS, is affiliated with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. APAICS lists Novo Nordisk as a associate on webpages for occasions in March and Might the place panel discussions touched on the therapy of weight problems.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute additionally lists Novo Nordisk as a donor however does not state how a lot the corporate contributed.

The Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus have backed a invoice on well being disparities that in 2022 was revised to additionally scrap Medicare’s prohibition on masking prescriptions for weight reduction.

The Congressional Black Caucus Basis, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Research didn’t reply to questions for this text. Novo Nordisk declined to say how a lot it contributed to the Congressional Black Caucus Basis’s 2022 legislative convention and whether or not it sponsored the panel to affect Congressional Black Caucus members’ positions; it equally declined to specify its most up-to-date annual contribution to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and its monetary contributions for varied APAICS occasions this 12 months.

“We assist a number of organizations to assist educate on and spotlight points vital to their communities,” firm spokesperson Natalia Salomao mentioned of Novo Nordisk’s relationship with the nonprofits.

Excessive-profile promoters

Martin’s streaming day by day information present in March featured an hourlong phase “powered by Novo Nordisk” on weight problems amongst Black People. Ferreira, of Novo Nordisk, mentioned Martin and Novo Nordisk “agreed {that a} phase on his present was an excellent alternative to succeed in his viewers to assist additional inform them about weight problems as a power illness and the significance of excellent vitamin and well being care.”

Martin didn’t reply to requests for remark. Throughout the episode, he cited Novo Nordisk’s function. “I definitely wish to thank them for partnering with us,” he mentioned.

Company pushed for Medicare to cowl sufferers’ anti-obesity prescriptions, with an eye fixed towards what protection may imply for seniors and different adults. The federal authorities is “imagined to be main the way in which on this,” Nelson Dunlap, vice chairman of public coverage and exterior affairs for Meharry Medical Faculty, a traditionally Black establishment, mentioned throughout the phase.

“Business insurances are inclined to comply with what Medicare does,” Dr. Tiffani Bell Washington, a psychiatrist specializing in weight problems drugs, mentioned on the present. Weight problems is “a well being problem. So, it actually does must be lined, and if Medicare covers it, often different folks comply with.”

Dunlap declined to remark for this text, and Bell Washington didn’t reply questions despatched by e mail.

Novo Nordisk enlisted Black music and leisure stars Queen Latifah and Yvette Nicole Brown to be paid spokespeople for an instructional marketing campaign that started in 2021 speaking that weight problems is a power illness and ought to be handled like different illnesses. Each celebrities have brazenly talked about dwelling with weight problems.

Stanford, one of many individuals within the September panel, in 2022 acquired $23,188 from Novo Nordisk, practically double what she acquired from the corporate in 2021, federal data present. The 2022 funds embrace consulting charges and bills for meals and journey.

“I would not need somebody that has no information informing them on how this truly works in actual life,” Stanford mentioned, explaining her relationship with the businesses. “The folks they be taught from are folks like me, the folks that really do that work on the bottom every single day with sufferers.”

One other panelist was Eric Griggs, an assistant vice chairman at Entry Well being Louisiana, a community of federally certified well being facilities. In an interview, Griggs mentioned Medicare protection of weight problems medication “would assist the answer. In the event you might help one group, you’ll be able to assist all of them.”

Based on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, based mostly on BMI, 50% of non-Hispanic Black adults within the U.S. are categorized as overweight, the highest fee for any race or ethnicity.

Nevertheless, the BMI measurement has more and more come underneath criticism as flawed. In June, the American Medical Affiliation mentioned it “doesn’t account for variations throughout race/ethnic teams, sexes, genders, and age-span.”

Since 2014, Novo Nordisk has spent greater than $30 million lobbying members of Congress and different federal officers, in keeping with a KFF Well being Information overview of lobbying disclosures. A constant topic is the Deal with and Cut back Weight problems Act.

“We’ve monumental well being care challenges that stream from weight problems,” mentioned Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a lead sponsor of that laws. He argued that spending cash on weight reduction medication would cut back spending on power illnesses that drive up the federal authorities’s well being care tab.

Carper is a longtime recipient of marketing campaign money from drug firms, together with makers of weight reduction medication. Nevertheless, some researchers categorical warning about lifting Medicare’s protection ban. For seniors, the unwanted side effects of such medication could possibly be extra harmful, in keeping with a paper by students at Vanderbilt College and the College of Chicago.

Negative effects for Wegovy and Ozempic could embrace kidney issues, gallbladder illness, irritation of the pancreas, and thyroid most cancers, in keeping with the product labels. Suicidal ideas are listed as a doubtlessly critical facet impact of Wegovy, its label says.

The Vanderbilt and Chicago researchers discovered that, even with modest uptake of the drugs, annual Medicare Half D bills may enhance by $13.6 billion. That might depart policymakers “within the place of creating broad cuts to different sorts of care,” mentioned Khrysta Baig, one of many paper’s authors.

However individuals who need Medicare and different insurance coverage packages to cowl the medication emphasize potential benefits.

Protection would save “the lives that we’re dropping at early ages, particularly within the Black group,” Bell Washington mentioned on Martin’s present in March, earlier than calling on viewers to take motion. “You should write to your legislators, ensure you’re selecting people who find themselves in assist of well being look after all,” she mentioned.

KFF Well being Information, previously often known as Kaiser Well being Information (KHN), is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working packages at KFF — the unbiased supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.