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Wegovy sales soar 27-fold after rival Mounjaro ramps up price in UK
Sales of weight loss jab Wegovy have soared in the UK after the maker of rival drug Mounjaro said it was hiking prices, a supplier has revealed.
Weight loss programme CheqUp said it had experienced a spike in interest from consumers wanting to switch or begin taking the medication.
This resulted in a 27-fold surge – or 2,660 per cent – in Wegovy sales on Wednesday this week, compared with the daily average in the month prior to the pricing news.
Sales of Wegovy’s lowest dose soared by 2,212 per cent, which CheqUp said reflected many people taking the medication for the first time amid heightened awareness and an end-of-summer health focus.
US manufacturer Eli Lilly last week announced the price of Mounjaro was rising by 170 per cent in the UK.
A month’s supply of the highest dose of the drug will rise from £122 to £330 from September.
Eli Lilly’s decision reflected efforts to more closely align prices with its other European markets, and amid political pressure from US President Donald Trump to keep pharmaceutical prices low for Americans.
The NHS is not set to pay the higher price in order to maintain access for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes accessing it through the health service.
Mounjaro is a weekly prescription weight loss injection that works by lowering the appetite and making people feel fuller between meals.
Alternative Wegovy is also self-administered through weekly injections but contains a different active ingredient.
The lowest dose of Wegovy costs £85 per month, and the highest dose is priced at £160.
More than a million people in the UK are estimated to be currently using weight loss medication.
Toby Nicol, chief executive of CheqUp, said: “We now confidently expect Wegovy to become the most popular weight loss treatment in the UK in the very short-term.
“Our sales of Wegovy in the last week since the price rise of Mounjaro was announced have surpassed all expectations.
“The extraordinary growth in Wegovy adoption has been seen across every dose of the medication, from existing Mounjaro patients switching to higher doses of Wegovy right down to new patients starting their weight loss journeys on the lowest dosage for the first time.
“This underlines that this isn’t just switching, it’s new beginnings, with people prioritising their health and exploring treatment options as awareness grows.”
The supply chain risk designation of the artificial intelligence firm is a first for a US company.
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UniQure needs to run another study to prove that its gene therapy “actually helps people with Huntington’s disease,” a senior U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said on a call with reporters Thursday.
The official, who requested anonymity before discussing sensitive information, confirmed the agency has asked the company to run a placebo controlled trial of its treatment, which is administered directly into the brain. UniQure has said that type of study isn’t ethical because it would require putting people under general anesthesia for hours, a characterization the official disputed.
“So what is really going on? UniQure is the latest company to make a failed therapy for Huntington’s patients,” the official said. “They likely acknowledge or understand at some deep level that their trial failed years ago, and instead of doing the right thing and running the correct clinical study, UniQure is performing a distorted or manipulated comparison in the mind of FDA.”
The comments mark the latest development in a messy public spat between UniQure and the FDA, and as the agency comes under fire for a number of recent drug approval application rejections, including some where companies have accused it of going back on previous guidance. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick last week seemingly criticized UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. Makary didn’t name UniQure but described its treatment.
UniQure then accused the FDA of reversing its stance that the company’s clinical trial data would be sufficient to seek approval. UniQure’s study used an outside database to measure how patients with Huntington’s disease might decline without treatment, known as an external control. UniQure has said it wouldn’t be feasible to run a true randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study, considered the gold standard, because it wouldn’t be ethical to make people undergo a sham hours-long brain surgery.
The FDA official said the agency “never agreed to accept this distorted comparison” and the FDA “never makes such assurances.” Instead, the “FDA will always say, ‘Well, we have to see the data when we get it.'”
UniQure didn’t immediately comment.
The company’s stock rose more than 10% on Thursday and has fallen 58% this year as of Thursday afternoon.
Business
US mortgage rates rise to 6% after three-week slide as oil-driven bond yields climb – The Times of India
The average long-term US mortgage rate edged higher this week, ending a three-week decline as bond yields rose amid oil-price pressures linked to the war with Iran.The benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate increased to 6% from 5.98% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said on Thursday. A year ago, the average rate stood at 6.63%, AP reported.The modest uptick breaks a three-week slide in borrowing costs, with mortgage rates having hovered close to the 6% mark for most of this year. Last week’s average had marked the first time the rate dipped below 6% since September 2022, reaching its lowest level in nearly three and a half years.Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy, investor expectations about inflation and economic growth, and movements in the bond market.They typically track the direction of the 10-year US Treasury yield, which lenders use as a benchmark for pricing home loans.The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.14% at midday Thursday, up from around 4% a week earlier.Treasury yields have moved higher in recent days as rising oil prices added fresh inflation concerns, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s plans to cut interest rates.
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