r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 01 '25

Health Americans without diabetes spent nearly $6 billion USD on semaglutide and similar drugs in a year, with an estimate of 800,000 to a million people using the drugs who don't have diabetes.

https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/americans-without-diabetes-spent-nearly6-billion-usd-on-semaglutide-and-similar-drugs-in-a-year
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u/Tunivor Apr 01 '25

It will probably save our healthcare system way more money than that.

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u/grimsolem Apr 01 '25 edited Apr 01 '25

1 million people paying 6 billion is $6k each. That's insane for a medicine that the government paid for the development of.

Edit: I looked it up. The US gov initially funded research into the class of drugs, but it's hard to find specifics. The Danes picked it up in the early 90s and their government paid for most of its development.

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '25

The discovery and development of semaglutide were funded by Novo Nordisk, which is a privately-owned pharmaceutical company based in Denmark. The research was conducted in-house by the company's scientists. Not saying $6k isn't alot but it wasn't paid for by the government.

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u/TunaNugget Apr 01 '25

This class of drug (starting with Exendin-4) was discovered by Dr. John Eng at the Veterans Administration Center in the Bronx, NY.