The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh - Scott Alexander

I started semaglutide on March 7 using a compounding pharmacy, after the FDA had already declared the shortage over. In the couple weeks since then the price of Wegovy was dropped by over 60% for self-pay. It seems impossible that some negotiation on pricing wasn't part of declaring the shortage over. This article highlights interesting ways that compounding may still be attempted with various unique dosage levels or additives.

But overall, I think the past two years have been a fun experiment in semi-free-market medicine. I don't mean the patent violations - it's no surprise that you can sell drugs cheap if you violate the patent - I mean everything else. For the past three years, ~2 million people have taken complex peptides provided direct-to-consumer by a less-regulated supply chain, with barely a fig leaf of medical oversight, and it went great. There were no more side effects than any other medication. People who wanted to lose weight lost weight. And patients had a more convenient time than if they'd had to wait for the official supply chain to meet demand, get a real doctor, spend thousands of dollars on doctors' visits, apply for insurance coverage, and go to a pharmacy every few weeks to pick up their next prescription

I think it would be too simple to apply this to a wide array of drugs, but there are likely some it could.