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Simply covering anti-obesity medications in 2023 led to a shocking increase in the rate of growth in employer-sponsored prescription plan spending, according to new data from the Segal Group.
At employer plans without coverage for anti-obesity medications, the average 2023 spending increase trend was 8.4% , Segal analysts found.
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Because Wegovy, Saxenda and other GLP-1 agonists were so popular and so expensive, the average trend at employers that did cover anti-obesity medications was 13.% — 4.8 percentage points higher.
At plans that covered GLP-1 agonists for control of obesity, the drugs added an average $6.47 in spending per member per month for all plan participants in the fourth quarter of 2032, up from $1.49 per member per month in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Patients can also use GLP-1 agonists to control diabetes.
Novo Nordisk sells an GLP-1 agonist under one brand, Wegovy, for weight control, and it sells the same GLP-1 agonist under a second brand, Ozempic, for diabetes control.
For the plans Segal tracks, the average monthly GLP-1 agonist cost was $1,375 for Wegovy and $778 for Ozempic.
Segal is a New York-based benefits and compensation consulting firm. Analysts the firm based the data on a review of transaction records for about 4 million employer prescription plan participants.
The big picture: The enormous impact of GLP-1 agonists on employer prescription plan spending could begin to shrink over time, as prescription costs fall.
Analysts at Swiss Re recently pointed out that the U.S. patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's popular Wegovy drug, will expire in 2032.
Related: Obesity drug cost crisis will end, Swiss Re analysts say
Use of GLP-1 agonists and related drugs could also help cut some types of employer health benefits spending, such as spending on bariatric surgery.
But, in the short run, the financial costs could continue to be much bigger than the financial benefits: the Congressional Budget Office is predicting that GLP-1 agonists will account for an average of just $650 in savings per year per user through 2034. That would only be enough to offset about 15% of the spending on GLP-1 agonists.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
