Sanders said the company has agreed to an early September hearing where CEO Lars Jørgensen will be the sole witness.
“I enjoyed the opportunity of chatting with Mr. Jørgensen this afternoon and thank him for agreeing to voluntarily testify on a solo panel before the HELP Committee on the high cost of Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States,” Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders had scheduled a vote for early next week on a subpoena to force Doug Langa, chief of Novo Nordisk’s U.S. division, to appear for a hearing.
Sanders launched an investigation in April into the “outrageously high prices” of Ozempic and Wegovy. He questioned why Novo Nordisk charges patients in the U.S. “up to 10 to 15 times more” for those products than their counterparts in other western countries like Canada and Germany.
This is the second time this year Sanders threatened to subpoena drug company executives to get them to testify. He used similar tactics with the CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
The health committee hasn’t issued a subpoena in over 40 years.
Letters from Novo Nordisk to Sanders that were reviewed by The Hill showed that Jørgensen was willing to voluntarily testify before the HELP committee but did not wish to be a solo witness.
“We asked that, in accord with your public statements to the New York Times and your statement to Mr. Jørgensen directly, the Committee hold a fair hearing which includes a range of stakeholders that impact what patients pay for GLP-1 medicines in the complex U.S. healthcare ecosystem—rather than focus on just one participant,” a letter dated June 7 read.
In a statement, Sanders said he “looks forward to Mr. Jørgensen explaining why Americans are paying up to ten or 15 times more for these medications than people in other countries.”
