Setback For Novo Nordisk? Denmark Shifts Prescription Guidelines, Favoring Cost-Effective Alternatives For Ozempic

Denmark’s healthcare authority has decided to favor less expensive drugs for type 2 diabetes patients, impacting the prescription of costlier GLP-1 drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s (NYSE:NVO) Ozempic. This comes a day ahead of the company announcing its first-quarter earnings of 2024.

What Happened: The Danish Medicines Agency disclosed on Wednesday that starting from Nov. 25, patients will be prescribed less expensive drugs before resorting to GLP-1 drugs. The agency noted that in 2023, half of the new type 2 diabetes patients started their treatment with a reimbursed GLP-1 drug without trying a cheaper alternative first.

Despite the popularity of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic due to their weight-loss effects, the Danish Medicines Agency expects nearly half of all current GLP-1 drug users to switch to cheaper alternatives. The agency reassured that it would continue to reimburse patients for their GLP-1 drugs if the less expensive alternatives do not suffice.

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Why It Matters: This decision will affect drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Rybelsus, and Eli Lilly’s Trulicity. The Medicines Agency has recommended the less costly alternatives on par with GLP-1 drugs.

This move comes in the wake of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) criticism of the “outrageous” prices of Ozempic. Furthermore, Americans have been swapping fast food for weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, which have quadrupled the number of prescriptions to more than 8 million last year.

However, the popularity of these drugs has also led to shortages in countries like Germany.

Price Action: Novo Nordisk’s stock closed at $128.31 on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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