The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave employers a new pharmacy benefits worry Monday by approving a tablet version of Wegovy.
Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer, said it plans to begin a full U.S. product launch for Wegovy tablets in early January.
The introductory price for cash-pay patients will be $149 per month for a one-month supply of the lowest available dose.
Novo Nordisk is making the pills now in a factory in North Carolina.
“Robust supply is on-hand,” the company said.
What it means: Eli Lilly has a tablet version of orforglipron, an eagerly awaited new-generation weight-loss drug, in the approval pipeline.
The addition of new, effective weight-loss drugs could help hold down spending on the drugs, by increasing the level of competition and putting pressure on the manufacturers and distributors to hold down prices.
But Ilya Yuffa, an Eli Lilly executive, predicted at a recent health conference organized by Citi that the availability of weight-loss drug tablets will tend to push up spending, by appealing to patients and doctors who have been leery of the idea of giving an injectable drug to people who are obese but otherwise healthy.
David Joyner, the chief executive officer of CVS Health, predicted at a U.S. House committee hearing in 2024 that patients, insurers, employers and other U.S. payers could soon be spending $1 trillion per year on Wegovy and similar weight-loss drugs.
A recent eHealth survey showed that obese and overweight U.S. residents are willing to spend about $200 billion of their own cash per year on effective weight-loss drugs.
The arrival of the new Wegovy tablet could help make the aggressive growth forecasts for use of new-generation weight-loss drugs predictions come true.
The history: The active ingredient in Wegovy is semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist.
Semaglutide helps people with diabetes control their blood sugar.
Novo Nordisk began selling an injectable version of semaglutide, Ozempic, for people with diabetes in 2017, and it received approval to offer the drug to people coping with obesity in 2021.
The company has been selling Rybelsus, a tablet version of semaglutide aimed at people with diabetes, since 2019.
Wegovy tablet approval details: The FDA approval covers tablets with a dosage of 1.5 milligrams, 4 milligrams, 9 milligrams and 25 milligrams, according to the official drug label.
Studies have shown that patients who stay on a 25 milligram dose of the tablets can lose about 17% of their body weight.
Clinical tests showed that some patients who used the Wegovy had bad reactions. They were twice as likely to have acute inflammation of the pancreas as people in a control group, and they were also twice as likely to have appendicitis.
The percentage of people who suffered from gallbladder disease attacks was 0.7% for people taking an injectable placebo, 1% for people taking a tablet placebo, 1.6% for people using Wegovy injections and 2.5% for people taking Wegovy tablets.