“One shot a week to lose weight.” In recent years, this slogan has created a worldwide rush for the diabetes drug Ozempic, which also leads to significant weight loss as a side effect. Suddenly Kim Kardashian was fitting into a Marilyn Monroe dress and Elon Musk was on X advertisement for the popular slimming drug. The hype was also so great in our country that the Danish producer Novo Nordisk could no longer keep up with demand.
Both organized crime and some unscrupulous entrepreneurs are responding to this acute shortage. They use social media to market many counterfeit Ozempic pens, which range from completely useless to potentially deadly. Because the number of online pharmacies has increased significantly in recent years, many consumers do not realize that the product is supplied by criminals.
It is striking that some seized counterfeit pens contain insulin instead of semaglutide, the active substance in Ozempic that affects blood sugar levels and the feeling of satiety. This is not without risk for people who inject the counterfeit pens into their bodies every week.
Already found in 16 countries
In Austria, a diabetic patient was urgently admitted to hospital at the end of last year after using counterfeit Ozempic. Doctors were able to save him in the nick of time. People also became ill in Belgium, Serbia, Switzerland and Iraq last year due to injections of fake Ozempic. It led to complaints ranging from vomiting to loss of sensation in the legs to a dangerous drop in the number of blood platelets, according to information obtained by the Reuters news agency through the Freedom of Information Act.
In fact, a report filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) details a 45-year-old Belgian woman who reported having a seizure and falling into a diabetic coma after allegedly taking fake Ozempic to help her lose weight. to fall. Her doctor said she had injected herself with at least 18 doses of pure insulin, almost five times the recommended dose for someone with diabetes.
According to figures from the Partnership for Safe Medicines, an NGO that identifies counterfeit medicines, counterfeit Ozempic has already been found in sixteen countries. Reuters reports that in one case a patient died due to false Ozempic. He or she fell victim to a blood clot after taking a weight-loss product advertised online as containing compound semaglitude.
Only by prescription
“We are working closely with the authorities in the relevant countries where counterfeit products have been found,” Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jorgensen told Reuters late last week. “This is something we take very seriously.” The Danish pharmaceutical giant regularly receives suspicious packages with the request to test their contents. According to Jorgensen, not only Ozempic but also its sister drug Wegovy is sometimes counterfeited.
“Criminal gangs are becoming increasingly creative in counterfeiting medicines,” explains Ann Eeckhout, spokeswoman for the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAGG). “Often the counterfeit medicines are not completely fake, but some medical ingredients are underdosed or overdosed. Or does the product contain products that are not legally permitted in Belgium or the EU.”
At the end of last year, the European Medicines Agency warned for the first time about counterfeit Ozempic from Germany and Austria, which could then be recognized through subtle differences in the logo, false serial numbers and a non-working barcode. Although, according to the FAMHP, the seizure of counterfeit products from Novo Nordisk in Belgium last year was limited to “14 Ozempic pens and two Wegovy units”.
But that may be the tip of the iceberg. “The safest way to obtain medicines is to buy them from a recognized pharmacy in Belgium,” Eeckhout gives as a tip. “You can recognize them online by the logo, which indicates that a pharmacy is registered with the FAMHP and the Order of Pharmacists. Ozempic can only be obtained with a prescription in Belgium. The fact that you can buy it online on foreign websites without a prescription should be a warning sign.”
