Legit Ozempic sales soar while counterfeits put patients in danger

Two contemporary reviews cloak how appealing American citizens are to effect either safe, legitimate variations of Ozempic or counterfeit and potentially unhealthy forms of the diabetes/weight-loss drug.

One glance chanced on U.S. prescriptions and refills of Ozempic (semaglutide) hovering over the final three years, jumping nearly 5-fold (392%) between early 2021 and the quit of 2023.

Ozempic’s reformulated-for-weight-loss cousin, Wegovy (additionally semaglutide), seen sales fly rapidly after its launch apart from.

Based on researchers led by Dr. Dima Qato, an affiliate professor of clinical pharmacy at the College of Southern California, sales of Wegovy climbed more than 14-fold between July 2021 and the quit of 2023.

“The series of prescriptions crammed for semaglutide has elevated substantially, reaching 2.6 million prescriptions crammed at retail pharmacies by December 2023,” Qatos’s crew reported Aug. 2 in the journal JAMA Health Forum.

It is all led to U.S. shortages of each Ozempic and Wegovy, first offered by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration in March of 2022, the researchers well-known.

Patrons who either can no longer derive semaglutide thanks to shortages, or who can no longer win ample money the medication (Wegovy is set $1,349 month-to-month), are more and more turning to dim market vendors on-line, a 2d glance chanced on.

That’s a dicey lunge, warned researchers at the College of California, San Diego (UCSD).

They chanced on many on-line counterfeit semaglutide products either irascible with toxins or containing dangerous doses of the drug. In some conditions, the medication simply weren’t delivered after consumers despatched vendors an excellent deal of of dollars.

A crew led by Tim Mackey, of UCSD’s Global Health Program, done on-line searches that turned up 317 on-line pharmacies providing semaglutide, 134 of which were chanced on to be illegal operations.

MacKey’s groups ordered semaglutide from six net sites already declared “no longer suggested or rogue” by two leading on-line pharmacy watchdog groups.

Three net sites were providing consumers the normal 0.25 milligram semaglutide injection pens (an much like Wegovy), while the an excellent deal of three offered a powdered originate of the drug that would be “reconstituted for injection,” the researchers acknowledged.

The medication weren’t cheap, with the smallest doses ranging from $113 to $360.

Patrons on the entire did not salvage what they had hoped for.

Within the case of three of the vendors, the product simply below no conditions arrived, in what Mackey’s crew referred to as “nondelivery scams.” In these scams, vendors rob your money but then claim that the drug is being held at U.S. Customs and additional payments as much as $1,200 are main to launch them (U.S. Customs advised Mackey’s crew that such claims are counterfeit).

However, potentially worse outcomes would possibly per chance per chance well also count on other folks who construct acquire their orders.

Loyal, branded Ozempic scores 22 out of 22 aspects on a checklist aimed at assessing drug purity and security. Sadly, products from the final three vendors that were acquired and then tested by researchers would possibly per chance per chance well also most efficient muster a pathetic 8 or 9 at most life like likely on the scale.

These products on the entire had shoddy labeling and were clearly unlicensed for sale, america crew acknowledged.

Beyond that, one sample showed traces of endotoxins (a likely signal for bacteria), despite the proven truth that no explicit pathogen turned into as soon as detected.

All of the products contained some semaglutide, “but with considerably decrease purity ranges,” Mackey’s crew wrote. One sample contained 39% elevated amounts of semaglutide than is recommended, a potentially unhealthy concern.

All of this would possibly per chance occasionally be contributing to diseases and overdoses, the researchers well-known.

“U.S. poison services and products win reported a 1500% amplify in calls connected to semaglutide,” Mackey and colleagues well-known.

These illicit on-line pharmacies “operate with out legitimate licenses and promote medicines cherish semaglutide with out prescription, [and] signify a user peril for ineffective and unhealthy products,” the crew concluded.

The glance turned into as soon as revealed Aug. 2 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

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