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People are excited about using semaglutide, a popular diabetes drug commonly sold as Ozempic and Wegovy, for helping people lose weight, and for good reason.
But the Food and Drug Administration is warning people not to get too excited. Issue an alert The company said it had received reports of people being hospitalized after overdosing on the drug, in some cases taking as much as 20 times the recommended dose.
Reported side effects included nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fainting, migraine and acute pancreatitis, according to a government statement released last week.
The majority of these cases are accidental, resulting from patients accidentally self-injecting with a drug concoction.
This isn’t usually an issue when using brand-name semaglutide: Ozempic and Wegovy are both sold as pre-filled injection pens, and other forms of semaglutide, such as Ryvelsus, are taken orally as a tablet, so an appropriate and safe dosage is already available for patients.
Compounding drugs, on the other hand, are made by pharmacies using raw materials rather than by drug manufacturers, and the products are usually customised to suit a patient’s specific needs. While this is legal, it is not approved by the FDA, and this is not the first time that patients have had trouble getting semaglutide prescribed by compounding pharmacies.
The FDA said in several reports that pharmacies had miscalculated the drug’s correct concentration, “resulting in patients receiving five to 10 times the intended dose of semaglutide.”
But in most cases, patient error was to blame: Compounded drugs were sold in multi-dose vials, so patients had to mix the correct injection doses themselves.
“Unfamiliarity with transferring medication from a vial to a syringe and confusion over different units of measurement (e.g., milliliters, milligrams, units) may have led to medication errors,” the FDA said.
The FDA recommends avoiding the use of combination medications when approved forms of the drugs are available.
But compounded versions remain an attractive option because they’re cheaper: There are currently no generic versions of semaglutide, and brand-name drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy can cost more than $1,000 a month without insurance.
Both drugs have been blockbuster hits, largely due to their ability to help people lose weight by suppressing their appetite. Due to differences in dosage, only Wegovy is officially approved for weight loss, while Ozempic is sometimes prescribed by doctors “off label” for weight loss purposes.
The hype has already been seen Global demand surges Early signs that semaglutide may help people quit smoking and treat a number of other ailments have further boosted sales of Ozempic: Its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, announced that sales of the drug were up more than 40% from a year ago. First QuarterMeanwhile, Wegovy saw a more than double increase.
Needless to say, there are a lot of people trying to get semaglutide right now, so if you’re one of them, make sure you’re taking it correctly.
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