The excessive cost of Ozempic is pushing numerous to unregulated, copycat drugs for weight reduction

Ozempic is one of the most discussed weight reduction sedates nowadays. While celebrities and influencers praise the medication’s rapid weight loss, few have mentioned its drawbacks. Since Ozempic has gone standard, no less than one incidental effect has become exposed: ” Olympic grin.”

To be clear, the medication does not directly affect your face; rather, it “leads to rapid weight loss that has an impact both on the body and the face.” People are looking for alternatives to the brand-name medications Ozempic and Wegovy, which both contain the active ingredient semaglutide. Either because of costs or ongoing shortages, people are looking for these alternatives.

Novo Nordisk, the sole manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy and the holder of the patent for semaglutide, stated in a statement that it does not supply the ingredient to these pharmacies. This has experts pondering the question of where pharmacies obtain the drug and whether or not it is semaglutide in any way.

The Food and Drug Administration says that compounding pharmacies mix and change drug ingredients to make medications that are tailored to the needs of specific patients.

Most of the time, the active ingredients in drugs are used to make compounded medications. In the cases of Ozempic and Wegovy, that is semaglutide.

However, despite the fact that they contain FDA-approved ingredients, compounded drugs are not regulated, monitored, or tested by the FDA, according to Benjamin Jolley, owner of Jolley’s Compounding Pharmacy in Salt Lake City.

The FDA says that hospitals sometimes use compounded medications when a commercially available option isn’t ideal. They might, for instance, reduce the amount of pain medication they take to avoid side effects or get rid of dyes or preservatives that might make people allergic.

Ozempic is not approved by the FDA for weight loss. However, semaglutide, the drug’s active ingredient, is also present in another medication called Wegovy, which is used to treat obesity caused by high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or high cholesterol. Ozempic is prescribed for weight loss off-label by some doctors. However, “doctors use careful criteria to determine if the medication is right for an individual,” Dr. Bhuyan states, referring to things like body mass index (BMI) or percentage of body fat.

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