Fake Ozempic, Wegovy offers rising

Novo Nordisk warned on Thursday of a surge in counterfeit versions of its weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic offered online, as German authorities gave more details of complex European trades in a fake drug case.

“Novo Nordisk has seen a significant increase in illegal online sales,” the company said in a statement, referring to products that contain the active ingredient semaglutide.

Amid a global obesity crisis, Novo became Europe’s most valuable company this year on soaring demand for weekly injection Wegovy and its lower-dose version Ozempic, but this has attracted illegal traders who may put users’ health at risk.

Novo’s words of caution, earlier reported by Danish publication Finans, amounted to the first detailed comments from the group on the counterfeit issue since a mid-June statement about fake Ozempic pens found at a U.S. retail pharmacy.

The warning came after Germany’s federal drug regulator on Wednesday urged pharmacies and drug distributors to be vigilant following the discovery of wholesale batches of fake Ozempic.

Prosecutors in the southwestern German town of Loerrach, near the Swiss border in Basel, said on Thursday 199 packages had been identified as fake at a British drugs distributor who had purchased the lot from a company near Loerrach in September.

That company in turn had received the consignment from a peer in Austria, the prosecutors said, adding that investigators are trying to find out whether more fakes had been sold in Germany.

Novo said the fake U.S. batches had a different serial number from the ones found in Europe. It would not comment further on the case investigated in Germany.

It said that, in principle, it was reporting every counterfeit case it comes across to relevant authorities, and in some cases was working with “specialized firms to identify the perpetrators of these crimes”, without naming the countries where it was doing so.

The Danish drugmaker also said it was working with a third party specialized in monitoring and taking down illegal online offers. It scaled up this work in 2023 to ensure a broader reach, it said, declining to name the firm it was working with.

In a further sign of illicit activity taking advantage of the hype around weight-loss drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday ordered two online vendors to stop selling unapproved versions of Novo and Eli Lilly (LLY.N) drugs.

In September Lilly filed lawsuits against U.S. medical spas, wellness centres and compounding pharmacies for selling products claiming to contain tirzepatide, the active ingredient in its diabetes drug Mounjaro which is expected to be approved for weight loss later this year.

Novo took similar legal action in July.

Compounding pharmacies combine or alter ingredients to create a medication tailored to the needs of an individual patient. The FDA has warned patients to refrain from using a compounded drug if an approved drug is available.

Demand for Wegovy and Ozempic is exceeding Novo’s supply of the drugs in the United States, Germany and Britain, leading the company to restrict supplies of certain doses of Wegovy to the U.S. market.

Though only Wegovy is approved for obesity, the fact that Ozempic for diabetes also leads to dramatic weight loss has led people in the United States and Europe to use the drug “off-label”, meaning not for its approved use.