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Business Wars

Ozempic Wars | The Hundred-Year Duel | 1

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.613.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk developed a new medication for type 2 diabetes, they noticed that a welcome side effect was a small amount of weight loss. They had no idea that their new diabetes medication was about to become a multibillion-dollar weight loss drug. But they had no sooner launched this game-changing drug, then competitors swooped in to knock Novo Nordisk off its throne.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

It's August 2025.

0:10.0

An SUV full of FDA agents pulls into a shipping yard in Cincinnati, Ohio.

0:17.0

Behind them, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nations roll in.

0:21.8

Engines rumbling.

0:28.9

The agents pile out of their vehicles and walk across the yard, which is crammed with thousands of shipping containers.

0:33.9

Soon, the crates will be loaded onto semi-trucks and shipped all over the country.

0:39.7

The agents make their way to the manager's office, a dusty white trailer at the center of the lot. The door opens, and a confused-looking man steps out. An agent hands him a

0:46.4

warrant, and then the raid begins. Agents fan out throwing open shipping containers, ripping

0:53.3

open boxes. Finally, an agent steps into a

0:56.8

container that recently arrived from Hong Kong. He pulls out a razor blade, slices open one of the

1:02.3

cardboard boxes, and freezes. He yells for the other Asians to come over. He's found what

1:08.9

they're looking for. The agents swarm in and start ripping into the boxes.

1:14.4

Inside each one are rows and rows of small glass vials labeled semaglutide. That's the active ingredient

1:21.6

in Ozzympic, the diabetes medication that millions of people use to lose weight. Except these vials aren't filled with

1:30.3

Ozzympic. They may not even contain semi-glutide. There's no way of knowing what's in them,

1:37.4

but that hasn't stopped shady online pharmacies from selling the liquid cheaply to unsuspecting

1:43.3

customers.

1:51.5

The agents load up close to 17,000 vials of unregulated weight loss medication, worth millions on the black market.

1:53.7

The FDA agents know this drug bust is just a drop in the bucket.

1:58.7

Across the United States, truckloads of unregulated illegal doses

2:02.4

of fake Ozympic are being transported and sold to people desperate to lose weight. But they don't

2:08.8

always work. They're dangerous. And they are absolutely everywhere. The FDA wants to remove these

...

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