May 5, 2023: The on-and-off saga of Wegovy’s supply problems returns for US patients looking to lose weight.
Novo Nordisk, the company that makes and markets semaglutide for weight loss as Wegovy and for the treatment of type 2 diabetes as Ozempic, Announced on Thursday that the company will only be able to “supply limited amounts of 0.25mg, 0.5mg and 1mg dose strengths [of Wegovy] to wholesalers for distribution to retail pharmacies” in the United States. This means that the expected supply “will not meet anticipated patient demand”, a situation that the company expects to continue “through September”.
The update added that the bottleneck is due to supply not meeting US demand, though the announcement also reassured patients already using the drug and taking higher weekly doses that their supply should not be affected. .
“We currently do not anticipate any interruptions in the supply of the 1.7 mg and 2.4 mg dose strengths of Wegovy,” the announcement read.
deja vu again
If this supply shortage sounds like déjà vu, it’s because Wegovy’s US supply was also short for much of 2022. However, by December 2022 and through February 2023, statements from Novo Nordisk it made it seem like the supply shortage was coming to an end. Today’s announcement from the company shows that optimism was misplaced.
The shortage of 0.25mg, 0.5mg and 1mg doses will mainly affect people starting Wegovy. To avoid or minimize side effects, especially gastrointestinal ones, when patients start treatment with semaglutide or any other similar drug, they start with the lowest dose and gradually increase to a maintenance dose, which for Wegovy can be up to 2, 4mg/week.
The company’s announcement acknowledged this impact, saying that healthcare providers should “consider the limited supply of Wegovy 0.25mg, 0.5mg and 1mg doses as part of their decision-making when initiating new patients in therapy, recognizing the possibility of interruption in care”.
The Novo Nordisk announcement also urged providers and patients to avoid using the semaglutide formulation designed to treat type 2 diabetes, Ozempic, as an alternative solution. The statement stressed that Wegovy and Ozempic “are not interchangeable.”
This reduction in Wegovy shortages may spark a return to US-devised solutions. weight loss clinics last year.
One such solution is to start patients on a different weight-loss drug, such as liraglutide (Saxenda), and then switch the patient to a higher-dose available formulation of Wegovy once the lead-in phase is complete.
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