Could 5, 2023 — The on-again, off-again saga of Wegovy provide issues for U.S. sufferers seeking to reduce weight is again.
Novo Nordisk, the corporate that manufactures and markets semaglutide for weight reduction as Wegovy and for treating kind 2 diabetes as Ozempic, introduced Thursday that the corporate will solely be capable of “provide restricted portions of 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg, and 1 mg dose strengths [of Wegovy] to wholesalers for distribution to retail pharmacies” in the US. Which means that the anticipated provide “won’t meet anticipated affected person demand,” a scenario the corporate expects to proceed “by way of September.”
The replace added that the bottleneck is brought on by provide failing to fulfill U.S. demand, though the announcement additionally assured sufferers already utilizing the drug and taking greater weekly dosages that their provide shouldn’t be affected.
“We don’t presently anticipate provide interruptions of the 1.7 mg and a couple of.4 mg dose strengths of Wegovy,” the announcement stated.
Déjà Vu All Over Once more
If this provide scarcity looks as if déjà vu, that’s as a result of the U.S. provide of Wegovy additionally fell brief all through a lot of 2022. Nonetheless, by December 2022 and as not too long ago as February 2023, statements from Novo Nordisk made it sound like the availability shortages had been coming to an finish. The corporate’s announcement right now exhibits that optimism was misplaced.
A scarcity of doses for 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg, and 1 mg will largely have an effect on folks beginning on Wegovy. To keep away from or reduce negative effects, particularly gastrointestinal results, when sufferers begin therapy with semaglutide or some other related drug, they start on the bottom dose and progressively work as much as a upkeep dose, which for Wegovy may be as much as 2.4 mg/week.
The corporate’s announcement acknowledged this affect, saying well being care suppliers ought to “take into accounts the restricted provide of the 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg and 1 mg dose strengths of Wegovy as a part of their decision-making when initiating new sufferers on remedy, recognizing the potential of disruption in care.”
Novo Nordisk’s announcement additionally urged suppliers and sufferers to keep away from utilizing the semaglutide formulation designed for treating kind 2 diabetes, Ozempic, as a work-around. The assertion highlighted that Wegovy and Ozempic “usually are not interchangeable.”
This Wegovy scarcity redux might immediate a return to the workarounds devised by U.S. weight reduction clinics final 12 months.
Certainly one of these workarounds includes beginning sufferers on a special drug for weight reduction, reminiscent of liraglutide (Saxenda), after which crossing the affected person over to an obtainable, higher-dose formulation of Wegovy as soon as the early section is full.
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