The Wild West of off-brand Ozempic
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared Ozempic and Wegovy in shortage. That has given rise to an unprecedented parallel market for imitations of the drugs made by specialized pharmacies, while unregulated websites offer their own, cheaper versions.
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Many people who have used injectable diabetes drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss say they have been life-changing. But the drugs are expensive, and can be hard to access: They have proved so effective that patients are clamoring for more than drugmakers can churn out. Last year, the FDA declared Ozempic and Wegovy in shortage, allowing specialized compounding pharmacies to mix up their own versions of the drugs using the same active ingredients, for a fraction of the cost.
But the parallel market around weight-loss drugs doesn’t end there. Daniel Gilbert dove into the world of off-brand weight loss compounds and found an unregulated market flourishing online. His reporting turned up more than two dozen websites that bypass doctors and pharmacies completely to sell semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — directly to consumers, usually with disclaimers that it’s not for human use. And he managed to track down some of the entrepreneurs trying to strike it rich in the Wild West of off-brand Ozempic.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of Today's Health Digest. |
| 0:09.8 | Our topic today is weight loss. |
| 0:11.4 | This is a video that I came across on the websites of a couple of dozen weight loss clinics |
| 0:19.7 | across the country, and it looks like a newscast. |
| 0:26.4 | Daniel Gilbert covers the business of medicine for the post. |
| 0:29.7 | He's talking about this video he started to see all over the place. |
| 0:33.1 | Last year, the FDA approved the first new class of weight loss medications and over eight |
| 0:38.4 | years, and what a stir it's caused. |
| 0:41.5 | In this video, a woman styled like a TV news anchor is sitting behind a desk. |
| 0:46.4 | Her guest is a man identified only as Dr. Kevin, but she's not a news anchor, and Dr. |
| 0:52.7 | Kevin's past as a physician is a bit controversial. |
| 1:00.3 | Daniel has been looking into the boom of weight loss drugs like ozempic and wigovie. |
| 1:05.5 | These drugs have become so popular that novo Nordisk, the manufacturer who makes them, |
| 1:10.6 | has racked up billions of dollars in sales. |
| 1:13.6 | By declaring there was a shortage of wigovie in March 2022, the FDA opened the door for |
| 1:19.2 | pharmacies to mix up their own cheaper versions of the popular drugs using the same active |
| 1:24.8 | ingredient, semagglutide. |
| 1:27.1 | So I understand this medicine is a custom blended prescription drug, and the treatment |
| 1:31.9 | is tailor-made for each patient's needs. |
| 1:35.7 | You take it once a week. |
| 1:37.4 | The subject of this interview that we just listened to is actually not about ozempic or wigovie. |
| 1:45.7 | It's about versions of those FDA-approved drugs that are made by compounding pharmacies. |
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