STAT+: Pharmalittle: Weight-loss drug makers lobby Congress for Medicare coverage; Europe braces for new pharma legislation
Weight-loss drug makers are lobbying Congress to grant them access to Medicare for their blockbuster treatments.
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Weight-loss drug makers are lobbying Congress to grant them access to Medicare for their blockbuster treatments, which would be a monster payday, The Wall Street Journal writes. New drugs to treat diabetes and obesity are helping people shed pounds and generating huge sales for Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. But they cost hundreds of dollars a month or more and Medicare doesn’t cover them to treat obesity. The law governing Medicare’s prescription-drug benefit excludes weight drugs. If that changed, demand from the 65 million older and disabled people insured through Medicare could push sales even higher.
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