Doctors doubt costly Wegovy pills will replace injections

Doctors in Denmark doubt that Wegovy pills will replace injections, with the tablets costing up to 3,867 kroner a month, DR reports.

The prescription weight-loss medicine is now available in Denmark in both forms. The pills are being brought in by 2care4, a parallel importer that buys original medicines in other EU countries and repackages them for sale in Denmark. The company expects the first packs to reach pharmacies tomorrow but has not disclosed how many it has bought.

Cees Stavenuiter, a practising doctor and vice-chair of the Danish Society for General Medicine, said taking one injection a week was easier than taking up to five tablets a day to achieve the same effect at the pills’ current dose. He also pointed to the price difference.

A month’s supply of the pills currently costs between 2,838 and 3,867 kroner, depending on the dose. A month’s supply of the injections costs between 1,300 and 2,200 kroner. Stavenuiter said he expected demand for the pills to rise only if they became cheaper than the injections.

Novo Nordisk has not said when it will officially launch the pill in Denmark or what it will cost. The pill is approved for use in the EU and has been launched in the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Germany. Mexico is next on the company’s launch list.

Nearly 300,000 people in Denmark have used Wegovy since the injectable version went on sale there in December 2022. The medicine requires a prescription in both pill and injection form.