Weight-loss drugs and insulin cost far less to make than companies charge | The Excerpt
On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at a new study revealing weight loss drugs cost less than $25 to make. Colleges told the Education Department they don't have enough time to process FAFSA information. Two-thirds of colleges and universities polled in an American Council on Education survey said they don’t believe they’ll be able to successfully process student financial aid data in the next few weeks. Former President Donald Trump’s namesake social media company stock hits turbulence. USA TODAY National Network Print Planner Sammy Gibbons tells the stories of four transgender athletes, amid growing hostility toward gender diverse people. Watch their stories here. We remember Louis Gossett Jr.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, March 30th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, why do weight loss drugs cost so much? Plus, a look at the latest headaches to this year's FAFSA rollout, and we hear about several groundbreaking transgender athletes ahead of tomorrow's trans day of visibility. Why do we pay so much for weight loss drugs? A new study from Yale University has some startling findings. I spoke with USA Today health reporter Karen Weintraub to learn more.
Hello, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Hello.
Taylor Wilson:
So Karen, this new wave of weight loss drugs, while I'm sure exciting for many, can be really, really expensive. How much do these drugs cost to purchase and what are we learning about how much they actually cost to make?
Karen Weintraub:
So they cost anywhere from about a $1,000 to $1,300 if you're paying out of pocket. Obviously, it can be a very different situation if you have really good insurance, you might be paying very little, but the out-of-pocket cost is astronomical. In terms of the cost to manufacture, what this study does is pull back the curtain. Typically, these manufacturing costs are proprietary. The companies hold these numbers very close to the vest, but this Yale researcher has figured out more or less how much they cost. She estimates that they're no more than about $22 a month to make. So again, we're paying 1,000, $1,300 list price for these drugs and they cost about $22 to make.
Taylor Wilson:
Are there similar discrepancies with the cost of insulin?
Karen Weintraub:
Yes. She pointed that out as well. Not quite as extreme because insulin prices have come down. The Biden administration has put a cap on them at $35 a month, although many people do end up paying more for things like the needles and other equipment. So that would end up being about $420 a year. This new research out of Yale, Melissa Barber estimates that it shouldn't cost more than about $215 a year to manufacture a similar kind of insulin, and that includes about a 10% profit for the drug company.
Taylor Wilson:
Did we hear from the pharmaceutical companies themselves after this study?
Karen Weintraub:
Yeah. So the pharmaceutical companies say that they have the patients in mind that they're doing what they can to make these drugs affordable. Many people blame middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers for the prices. Other people blame the drug companies. Other people blame the fact that in the US, companies can charge higher rates than they can charge In other countries. In Mexico and in Canada and in Europe, these drugs sell for a lot less than they do in this country. So the question is why. The answer is they can get away with it to some degree.
Also, there is a legitimate reason to charge more than the manufacturing price for these drugs. Some of these drugs were decades in the making. The research and development for these drugs took a very long time. There were a lot of failed drugs along the way. So you could say that there were many years, if not decades, of work that went into them that have to be repaid, but you can question whether they need to be repaid this much.
Taylor Wilson:
Senator Bernie Sanders spoke out about this issue this week. Are there legislative solutions on the table here, Karen?
Karen Weintraub:
President Biden has tried to put a cap on drugs. He's negotiating the price of 10 popular drugs at the moment to take effect in 2026. That was the best he could do in terms of negotiating a deal. With the drug companies, several of which are now suing to fight that cap. It's a very politically fraught issue. Obviously, the pharmaceutical companies don't want a cap and the politicians are trying, but not necessarily succeeding.
Taylor Wilson:
Karen Weintraub covers health for USA Today. Thank you, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Thank you.
Taylor Wilson:
Two-thirds of colleges and universities pulled in a new survey said they don't believe they'll be able to successfully process student financial aid data in the next few weeks, and fewer than half of them are adjusting their decision deadlines so far. Those concerns were detailed in a letter sent to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Thursday by the American Council on Education and other organizations representing colleges in Washington. Those were just some of the things more than 350 colleges had to say when asked about how they're responding to the repeated delays in this year's rollout of the new free application for federal student aid or FAFSA.
Just a week ago, the education department acknowledged it was miscalculating the data for hundreds of thousands of students. The department blamed the mistake on an outside vendor and said it has since been fixed. The glaring admission by colleges confirms widespread fears that the bungled rollout of the new financial aid form would've downstream effects for millions of students. Cardona is asking governors to extend their statewide financial aid deadlines beyond the beginning of May after the department said this week that students would not be able to make corrections to their FAFSA forms until the first half of April. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
Former president, Donald Trump's namesake social media company had a big first day of trading on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange on Tuesday. It opened at nearly $71 and soared near 80 as Trump fans and opportunistic traders bought up shares, but the price then faded and ended Thursday down more than four bucks just under $62. The stock exchange was closed yesterday in observance of Good Friday. Trump media's market valuation just over $8 billion is still stunning for a social media fledgling with an unproven business model that has struggled to attract users and advertisers burn through cash and racked up losses, but market observers say Thursday slide could be just the beginning and Trump media's trading has mimicked meme stocks like GameStop and AMC, which rose to improbable heights in 2021 after individual investors organized on social media to drive up the stock price.
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Increasing numbers of states are attempting to prohibit transgender athletes from participating on teams that align with their gender identities. USA Today's In Their Own Words is a video project that interviewed four transgender athletes who told their own stories about living in an America that is increasingly hostile to gender diverse people. For more on the project, I spoke with USA Today National Network Print Planner, Sammy Gibbons.
Sammy, so good having you on The Excerpt today.
Sammy Gibbons:
Hi, Taylor. Thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Of course. So can you just start by telling us about this project and why it's important to tell these stories right now?
Sammy Gibbons:
So this project called In Their Own Words is a video focused series featuring four transgender and non-binary athletes, each of them from different sports, different places in the country. We tried to capture a lot of diverse voices within the transgender and non-binary athlete community. Hundreds of bills have been introduced in legislators across the US that are aiming to ban transgender people from participating in sports comfortably, basically, banning them from participating on teams that align with their gender identity, among other restrictions.
There's been a lot of coverage of these conversations in mainstream media, but the voice that seems to be lacking from a lot of this coverage are trans athletes themselves. So we wanted to bring some trans athletes to the forefront and have them give their firsthand accounts as a way to debunk a lot of what is being said about these athletes without their input being elevated.
Taylor Wilson:
It's a powerful series. These athletes really do tell a story of hope. Let's start with Angel Flores. What is Angel's story?
Sammy Gibbons:
Angel is a competitive weightlifter. At one point, she broke a record in Texas for lifting over 400 pounds, which I can't believe, but Angel grew up in Texas and then moved to Seattle largely because she is trans, and in Texas, she felt the need to hide, felt unsafe in many ways. She's continuing to do professional weightlifting. She's a coach now. She was featured on season six of Queer Eye, and like everyone featured in this project, she has become an activist, an outspoken advocate for trans inclusion in sports. Since she's been on the show, she's been way more vocal, way more outspoken, and she is able to be this loud and proud activist for transgender people broadly and also transgender people in sports.
Taylor Wilson:
So Skylar Baylor found a safety in the pool. What did he say about that, Sammy, and how is he fighting for others to find the same comfort?
Sammy Gibbons:
So Skylar told me that he grew up swimming. The pool has always meant a lot to him. He was invited to swim on the women's team at Harvard. At that time, he was figuring out his gender identity. The women's team didn't necessarily feel right to him, and the coaches were very supportive. He was invited to join the men's team, but he also didn't necessarily feel like he was ready for that. So he took a break from swimming for a bit, actually, and ended up coming back and joined the Harvard men's team. He became the first openly transgender NCAA Division I athlete in any sport. He recently published a book called He, She, They. He has a very prominent online presence where he offers a lot of education about his own experience, and he debunks a lot of the common misinformation that has been going around that spurred this project about the, quote, unquote, "advantages" that these athletes do not necessarily have.
Taylor Wilson:
Let's talk about Cat Runner, who's changing the sport of climbing. Tell us about how he's pushing for transgender representation in that sport.
Sammy Gibbons:
Cat Runner recently won the show The Climb on HBO Max. He is one of very few transgender people who are on a mainstream TV show, let alone winning a competition like this, but what he's talking about is that he did not win because he's on testosterone, because he is going through hormone replacement therapy. He did not win because he's trans. This is because of training. This is because of the work he put in. He's trying to inform people. I think a misconception that's gone around in legislatures conversations about trans athletes is that this testosterone is like a magic juice that can make people stronger or there are other inherent strengths if people are not taking testosterone, but it's not a magic juice. There are a lot of other factors that contribute to people improving at their sport. It improves one's mental health if they are getting the care that they need, and hormone replacement therapy for many trans people is something that they need, and more motivation to work out. He's always been a person who loves to be outside, loves to move his body in different ways just like anyone else.
Taylor Wilson:
Another athlete feature in this series was Cal Calamia. This is a runner who took on the US Anti-Doping Agency and won. How so?
Sammy Gibbons:
Cal was gearing up just last year to run the Chicago Marathon. Then he was reported for being on a banned substance, which is testosterone, and was forced to turn over a lot of very invasive medical records, his entire psychological history, basically had to prove that he's trans and that he needed to take testosterone because he's trans. It was a long and uncomfortable and invasive process is what he told me. He did run. He found out just a couple of days before he got a very rare exemption that lasts for 10 years, but he has since helped establish non-binary divisions at other marathons across the US, and he hopes that this shows that transgender people don't need to be interrogated to do these sports. They don't need to go through these invasive processes to run a marathon that they've been training for in whatever gender division they want to be in.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Sammy Gibbons is a national network print planner with USA Today. You could find a link to this series in today's show notes. Thank you, Sammy.
Sammy Gibbons:
Thank you. Thanks for featuring this.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find a link to the video series in today's show notes ahead of tomorrow's International Transgender Day of Visibility.
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Louis Gossett, Jr. has died. In 1982, he starred as Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley and an officer and a gentleman, a role that scored him an Academy Award for best supporting actor. He became the first Black man to win in the category. Over his career, the pioneering talent also won an Emmy for his role in the TV miniseries Roots based on Alex Haley's book of the same name. He also starred in stage in screen versions of A Raisin in the Sun, which helped make him a Hollywood star. In recent years, he's guest starred or appeared on television series, including Madame Secretary and The Good Wife. Louis Gossett, Jr. was 87 years old.
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Be sure to tune into the excerpt tomorrow for a special episode as my co-host Dana Taylor sits down with voting rights activist Marc Elias. They discuss the many ways Americans are facing discrimination and equal access to the ballot. What does Congress need to do to fix it? You can find the episode right here beginning at 5:00 AM Eastern Time.
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It's a holy weekend for Christians around the world. If you're celebrating, Happy Easter. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. Dana Taylor will be in tomorrow, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Weight-loss drugs, insulin cost less than $25 to make | The Excerpt
