The Maker of Ozempic Is Trying to Block Compounded Versions of Its Drug
wired.com
wired.com
I think you've accomplished something really incredible with your weightloss and I'm very proud of you! .... but this part right here concerns me.
The reasons for eating beyond maintenance calories are broad, complicated and robust and I don't think it's fair to say "I should have just been more disciplined, 4head". The negative side-effects of food cravings can be really serious and "too hard" to fight against and that's a reasonable enough stance, especially when there are chemical changes you can make for yourself, such as this medication, that can help you.
In a very related sense, I was taking a (relatively) high dosage of a medication for myself that I needed for a time. I gained 30 pounds over about 2 years while on that stronger medication. I also tried to lose weight; but the cravings for food were becoming too much - far too much; and I had just come off the best shape of my life, where I actually had to force myself to eat *more* so that I would gain muscle. I just plain wasn't hungry. But this med I was on, yeah, I just ate more, regularly. It was easier - but trying to slow down my eating? The cravings were bad. Unlike any I'd ever had. And if I didn't eat, I was tired, angry, unfocused, a world of problems.
Now that I've reduced this medication (with the help of a psychiatrist), the cravings have effectively disappeared; and when they are present, it's very easy to overpower them and just move on. They don't cause my to be literally unable to sleep. I don't lose all my focus, it's just ... easier - easier enough that it's actually doable.
And a medication changed helped that.
Crutches are a very good thing when you can't walk or when it hurts too much to walk. It's okay to use a crutch. It is not a personal failing, it is a medical aide and an accessibility tool.
Please, I encourage you, give yourself some grace :)
I have gained a ton of weight in the past four years, going from a BMI of 19 to a BMI of 28. I do not have "cravings". I experience constant hunger. I got tired of being hungry all the time and started eating until I am no longer hungry, and that's why I'm fat now.
Calories in, calories out, and all that nonsense that doesn't account for hunger is just a way of dismissing the very real struggle of people who, for whatever reason, have a disproportionate amount of hunger relative to the amount of energy they need on a daily basis.
I always assumed cravings was when something sounded good and you could eat it but weren't necessarily hungry. Like most days I have a craving for some ice cream but I'm not actually physically hungry. Ignoring that craving means that I eat a lot less overall.. it doesn't mean that I end up eating alternative foods instead.
>I experience constant hunger. I got tired of being hungry all the time and started eating until I am no longer hungry, and that's why I'm fat now.
You seem like someone that Ozempic type drugs would help since they slow down digestion and make you feel full for longer.
I do not eat when I am not hungry. Why would I do that? I'm already fat enough.
In essense, when one has a craving for something expected/remembered that is actually unattainable, one over eats.
Of course, that conflicts with a common theory of smoking and weight loss being about taste reduction as opposed to an alternative craving as a substitute or some other cause.
I didn't realize that was a thing people thought. I know smoking screws up your sense of taste but I assumed the prevailing thought was that something about nicotine or some other part of smoking just curbs hunger.
For me there is the kind I can usually ignore and the “I feel sick” kind I can’t.
I definitely have the:
* "I could eat"
* "I should probably eat soon"
* "Everyone around me is now annoying and I hate everyone and everything and why is this work problem so hard and darn it, I have a meeting in 3 minutes? Who schedules a meeting at this time?!" level.I had advanced gallbladder disease that went misdiagnosed for a long time and the last month I was able to eat about 500 total calories. I had a desperate desire to eat something, anything, that is impossible to describe accurately.
It frequently became a guessing game for me to try and figure out which it was - did I gamble that I just needed to drink some more, and run the risk of feeling worse from what turned out to be actual hunger? Or did I just eat some food, which also included drinking more fluids, and make sure I was back to feeling OK soon after?
I can tell you which option I chose most of the time, particularly if I was busy with work or a personal project.
Now, I have a much easier time differentiating.
The name of the game in controlling hunger is finding a diet that creates satiety. For me this was keto. Getting that fat macro up to 75% was the magic bullet, if I was below that, I had “cravings”. If I was at or above that I was fine.
I am not suggesting that is the right way of eating for everyone. I think diet is an individual endeavor, but for me it was the right way to keep that hunger at bay.
Same. Down 80. Healthy weight for the first time since I was a child. Taking this has led me to feeling less shame about my previous weight and that maybe a lot of this discipline you talk about might also be some of our biology just being not super compatible with modernity. I've personally gone from feeling a bit like a fat cat who you have to take the bowl away from to one who just eats responsibly. Wouldn't really be an issue for the cat in the wild or us 100 years ago. But here we are needing to take away our own bowls. Maybe it really just isn't as easy for some of us.
This! our body through millions of years of evolution is just not built for an abundance of easy to obtain dense caloric food, while living in relative leisure. It just isn't.
CICO proponents don't understand you are asking an individual to fight millions of years of evolution with self-discipline.
Besides all the other benefits of exercise, it will help keep the weight off. You can't stay on ozempic forever.
For most people (now), their food habits don't deliver very good nutrition in just 1500 calories and the problems with that compound if they're living an active life that needs more nutrients. Neurotic dieters have hurt themselves through that problem for decades, as so much cultural focus in on "calories in, calories out" that they don't even think about whether their broader nutritional needs are still being met during calorie restriction.
Do you find that these drugs have provided any help in making your diet sufficiently dense in nutrition to compensate for the reduction in volume? I hear that they strongly affect appetite and food appeal, so I worry for what it might mean for people who dive in without taking nutrition density seriously. It seems so easy to just buy the drug and let it help you eat less, but that's such a dangerous thing to do naively.
I am struggling with getting enough calories in general - even on the lowest dose I have to force myself to eat more than a meal a day. But I don't miss the processed/fried/etc. foods while on tirzepatide the way I do when I'm just counting calories, etc. I throw in a a protein shake and a broad spectrum of supplements to help. (I stick to the ones that have actual research studies to back their efficacy - examine.com is great for quickly sorting things into 'ignore as marketing garbage' and 'research more' piles)
I've also found it significantly easier to be motivated to work out.
I am definitely eating better and watching what I eat. Mostly because I care now. I am up to 80-100g of protein per day. I stopped drinking soda altogether. I drink water multiple days. I am no longer suffering from sleep apnea.
> Do you find that these drugs have provided any help in making your diet sufficiently dense in nutrition to compensate for the reduction in volume? I hear that they strongly affect appetite and food appeal
You are satiated faster when used in combination with protein heavy meals. I am also weighing my food and following the serving sizes.
They do affect your appetite but I also think it was a mindshift because I can stop taking the medication after it wears off beyond my weekly shot and I am not that hungry anymore. I attribute it to maybe my stomach got smaller and I used this opportunity to retrain myself and have better healthy eating habits.
One way of thinking about it is that I have always enjoyed fruits like apples, blueberries, etc but I have always enjoyed a bag of chips or a great sandwich more. What I've found now is if I keep fruits, yogurts, cottage cheese etc in the fridge I will opt for them over the more junky foods, or at least just as much.
I've gone from fit and powerlifting for years to fat for years to trying to get back into lifting, etc. (the latter, multiple times) and while age is a bit of a confounding factor, the fatter I am, the more difficult exercise is - both cardio and resistance training. It's just harder on your tendons and ligaments. It's not insurmountable, and training can make those more resilient as well, but when you're starting from effectively zero, doing that a 250lb is tougher than doing it at 200 is tougher than doing it at 175, etc.
Running is pretty high impact, too. It's going to put quite a lot of stress on your joints.
I'd recommend everyone incorporate exercise as much as they can regardless of their weight, but I've found it easier and easier to ramp mine back up as my weight has gone down.
Presumably now that you've gotten into powerlifting you don't still lift the same weight you did when you started. If you did, it would indeed be easier. But you probably lift more weight, so that the intensity is similar.
(To be completely transparent, I wasn't trying to state a universal truth. That phrase is just a common tongue-in-cheek joke among runners and cyclists; I misread the crowd a bit assuming it'd be recognized)
There are a lot of people that seem to think that obese people can fairly easily just stand up on day one and start working their ass off, though, and that this is the only thing holding them back from changing their lifestyle, so I made the faulty assumption your comment was along those lines.
(These days I'm thinking I'm going to be move towards being more focused on the hypertrophy aspect - less likely to injure myself, and I gotta do something to fill out at least some of the loose skin that awaits me on the other end of the weight loss journey)
If you take someone with a fixed fitness and reduce their mass, they will expend less energy per unit of time, but in order to effectively train you need to keep a target intensity, so you increase the amount of distance you cover per step or increase your cadence, either / both of which increases the energy consumed per unit of time.
That's all I mean when I say that you just go faster.
In my experience, qualitatively, what you say is absolutely true. I don't even notice a change in pace if my weight floats up or down a bit, I mostly run at a specific level of effort and the pace adjusts itself depending on how much I've over-indulged. However, there are thresholds.
If I try to run a pace that is too slow, there's a point where it almost becomes more shuffle than run, gait goes to hell, and there's a loss of efficiency. As I've gotten more fit (but not lighter) I can now do zone 2 running on the flat with workable form, but this wasn't always the case. It's still less efficient than a fast pace, but at least it looks like running.
So if one is too heavy to even run with actual running form for any length of time, it's harder to be heavy. That's okay, they should probably try run/walk intervals until they get there.
On the other hand, it can also be harder when you're more fit. My pain tolerance has gone way up. I can just beat the ever living snot out of myself, and if I'm not careful, I do just that. It's much easier to do too many miles way too quickly now and that starts manifesting itself in all kinds of noisome ways. Find anyone who considers themselves a runner and get them talking about their injuries and you better not have anywhere else you need to be.
By your definition, Usain Bolt running the fastest 100m time ever set by a human is having an easier time than me because I do it slower.
What most people mean by easier is that it "feels" easier: this would be accomplished by aiming to take the same amount of time even in the face of capacity increasing.
It's not just a comparison of fast versus slow, it's also heavy versus lighter body weight. You can move faster at lower weights while spending the same amount of energy as someone moving more weight slowly.
The net result is that it's easier to run a fixed distance when you're in shape. The same energy output makes you move faster, making the run shorter in time duration, meaning you actually spend less energy.
Further, getting in better shape often coincides with improvements in metabolic efficiency, so you get further benefits.
Usain Bolt has exceptionally improved musculature and metabolism for sprinting over the standard person, so his maximum energy output results in an exceptional speed.
At that point, we aren't talking about equivalent energy outputs anymore, which means it isn't relevant to the "easier" qualifier.
The wrinkle is that most runners run to a pain point. Over time, I went from neverrunning to running decent mileage per week, and my runs hurt _more_ now than they did when I started because I run to a pain point. I run further, faster, and more frequently and I have a higher pain tolerance, so it hurts more while I run and the recovery is rougher.
So my runs are at least as hard, but yes, I'd absolutely destroy the version of me that thought three miles was an accomplishment by any objective metric.
work = force * displacement
work = mass * acceleration * displacement
lower mass, less work.
- Be mindful of when your mind wanders from paying attention to Form(Posture/Gait/Technique), Breath and Pace. When it wanders, bring it back to focus on these aspects.
- Try observing when the first feeling and proceeding thought enters your mind and try separating the feeling like tiredness, anxiousness, overwhelmed from the distracting thoughts you have due to it(e.g. "I wanna quit", or "I can't do this"). But stay with the feeling and this thought. Just observe it and bring back your attention to the aforementioned things: your Form, Breath and Pace. Over time the though and feeling dissipate and you come to be at ease with the process.
Over time, this has helped my motivation because often I was fighting my thoughts(which in the long run is like stuffing mail in a full post box) and not paying attention to the actual exercise.
I don't know if weight loss via calorie tracking and self control is really worthwhile if you can just do a cycle of appetite suppressant to keep weight around target baseline.
Seems like drugs have made weight management a solved problem. No reason to over think it for genpop if you can cycle drugs.
The unsolved problem is body composition -> picking right exercise regimes and diet macronutrients so you're losing more fat than muscle.
But really that should also be a solved problem if west weren't stupid about steroids and poured serious research into them.
It shouldn't be surprising that Novo Nordisk is fighting these compounding pharmacies that are purely interested in undercutting them. Not to say they need our sympathy, since I'm sure a significant cost of Ozempic is due to the injection pen with a million patents.
The pill, Rybelsus, barely works. They've having to put 700%+ more than the injections to still get a lower overall effectiveness. They're actively working on alternative delivery methods to resolve this.
A daily pill GLP-1 will be a massive commercial success. Rybelsus isn't very good for either the manufacturer or the consumer. You're burning a lot of expensive peptide to get a worse outcome at every dose level.
An efficient drug delivery mechanism you can’t get into the hands of a broad population cohort is not efficient. We are optimizing for accessibility for everyone who needs access to this drug family (imho).
At some point it isn't "perfect Vs. good" it is "effective Vs. ineffective." Rybelsus is an ineffective medication. Even with the eye watering waste set out above, it is reported as being less effective as a GLP-1 too. There is no upside.
A pill GLP-1 is an absolute game-changer. We just aren't there yet.
https://www.simpleonlinepharmacy.co.uk/online-doctor/weight-...
Aren't there a handful of similar drugs in that class though? I wonder if some of them come off patent sooner.
Liraglutide is an older version that is now available as a generic, but it's results, particularly for weight loss, are far behind semaglutide, tirzepatide, etc.
Starting to push Wegovy was just a money grab, Novo must have known that it would disrupt their delivery of Ozempic.
If you're drastically overweight and not diabetic, that's because not enough time has passed.
What people fail to realize is that obesity correlates highly with pretty much every bad thing you can develop. The faster you control obesity, the lower your risk will be. Virtually every organ in the body, from liver to kidneys to heart to lungs, is negatively impacted by obesity.
I view it as people taking those drugs pre-emptively. They would require them, eventually.
Weightloss folks are shit out of luck for insurance coverage, and so they go to compounding pharmacies and pay in the $200/month range. Forcing them to ~5 times the price will have a lot of folks unable or unwilling to do so and demand will drop.
Alternatively, if everyone is clamoring for the drug, maybe that influences regulators/lawmakers for what gets covered by Medicare. Honestly, the way people are talking about semaglutide - it could become a drug that is just provided to everyone who wants it, by default, paid by the government. (And would probably be a net positive ROI by the government - the amount of savings and increased productivity if America reduced obesity rates by 10+% would be incredible)
Genuinely would not be surprised if this does increase medical costs for society as a whole. Obesity related deaths seem like they're more likely to be sudden compared to what might get you if you live longer.
Besides, it's hard to know what the health effects really are of being overweight, because it's such a convenient rug for doctors to sweep any and all problems under. "Let's see if you still have this problem after you've dropped 20 pounds, ok?" Because clearly your weight is due to a moral failing, and it suggests you're probably screwing up all kinds of other things. Why bother to work on helping you when you're unwilling to even try to do your part? Fat => lazy and weak-willed => won't stick to medication schedule or exercise or diet or anything => unworthy of help. There's not a lot of questioning whether being overweight is an effect or has a common cause; it's assumed to be the relevant cause, or at least has a high enough probability of being the only relevant cause worth looking at because it's common knowledge.
(Neither I nor anyone in my immediate family are overweight, by the way, so don't ignore my rant by assuming I'm being bitter about personal experience.)
If you haven't been living with extra weight for a decade, you wouldn't have the first-hand experience of why being overweight is definitely a symptom of and contributor to health issues as well as quality of life degredation.
> I have read numerous reports... > Besides, it's hard to know what the health effects really are of being overweight...
I can agree that being overweight is often what a doctor sees, but honestly any doctor that makes assumptions like that is not interested in root causes. They're trying to see as many patients as possible, e.g. as a GP, and offer fixes for what they can fix, and referrals to specialists for that which they can't fix with the usual prescription or advice.
All this to say that I really disagree with the first paragraph, and this entire post feels like just opinion despite conjecture on what numerous reports you've read.
No, there aren't. Being significantly overweight is unhealthy, full stop.
This is only true in the most disingenuous of interpretations and look purely at BMI. The "health overweight" people are nearly exclusively those with significant lean body mass from the hypertrophy induced by resistance training. If it's fat pushing you into the overweight category, you're almost certainly unhealthy in a variety of manners. Insulin resistance, lipid profiles, blood sugar, arterial calcification, visceral fat pressing on organs, etc. etc. etc. all the way to less obvious ones like high estrogen levels in men causing issues with mood, etc.
Being overweight is one of the worst things you can do to your health.
Compounding pharmacies are getting the drug from the feedstock producers, but how on earth are they contractually permitted to sell it?
In practice, there are generic manufacturers for semaglutide, and many other peptides still protected by US patents, mostly located in China. The more reputable of these manufacturers produce these drugs at levels of purity rivaling the 'name brand'. These manufacturers export lyophilized product en masse to middlemen that operate in the grey/black-market 'research chemical' sales market, or ship to compounding pharmacies. The consumers purchasing on the grey/black market reconstitute the drug at home (which requires a trivial level of effort), and assume some extra degree of risk in terms of product purity and sterility. Consumers wanting an extra level of assurance for product quality purchase from a compounding pharmacy that ostensibly is conducting its own assessments of product purity, and following best practices for sterile reconstitution.
Henry's, one of the compounding pharmacies, says that they get the chemicals from legitimate licensed producers of feedstock [1].
There is a compounding loophole, but there is no loophole for patent encumbrances -- if a compounding pharmacy is violating NN's intellectual property, then can just sue them directly; they don't have to pursue the regulatory crackdown they're going for now.
There are companies that do grey/black market reconstitutions, like Pivotal Peptides. But they are not compounders. The compounders are legally selling the real thing directly to customers. Do you have a specific source that indicates that any compounding pharmacy is getting its feedstock illegally from China?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/henrymeds/comments/1av14cm/comment/..., discovered via https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-compounding-loophole
For one, the FDA does not 'license' any manufacturer, period. They do enforce safety and quality standards, but this is not controlled through some sort of a general license, and operates on a per-facility basis.
DMF listing (which isn't a 'license') does not necessarily have any relation to whether that manufacturer is supplying a brand name provider.
The 'license' that account is posting about a complete fiction. There is not a license granted here in any government context, nor a license between NN and the manufacturers the post discusses.
> The compounders are legally selling the real thing directly to customers.
This is debatable. They are not selling 'OEM' NN product to consumers.
Also - stop talking about 'feedstock'. It's weird. It's not standard industry lingo and obscures whatever the hell it is you're talking about (precursors? lyophilized product? something else?)
When I say "the real thing" I mean that they are selling semaglutide, which they are obtaining somehow. The reddit post was the closest thing I've seen to an answer to the question "where are they getting it".
So if they are not getting it from producers under license from NN, where are they getting it? Why isn't the legality of that path under active legal attack? There must be some fig leaf at least that they can use to say how they got the substance when the patent is still in force, otherwise judges would immediately shut them down with an injunction.
I've got a high enough risk tolerance that I've got lyophilized tirzepatide on the way from a Chinese seller. Even if I send one of the vials off to be tested, it will still be cheaper than I can get it from a compounding pharmacy in the US.
>So if they are not getting it from producers under license from NN, where are they getting it?
They're obtaining it from pharma labs with the right equipment and talent to produce it. The synthesis process is well understood, it's not like it's a Novo Nordisk secret.
> Why isn't the legality of that path under active legal attack?
It is.
See, for example:
https://a4pc.org/2024-04/mass-confusion/
https://subsema.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/White-Paper-S...
https://mynextgenrx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Compounde...
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/lilly-files-complaints-a...
Why is the FDA warning that some compounding pharmacies are using the salt forms of semaglutide and tirzepatide?
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information...
I tried looking around at these links but I couldn't find the actual lawsuit itself, and I'm curious what they specifically say. There's a difference between saying that a compounding pharmacy is selling junk claiming that it is semaglutide (that is, making false claims that may reflect on NN when the substance is ineffective), vs. claims that the drug is being produced in violation of their intellectual property rights for the synthesis of the drug.
NOVO NORDISK INC. v AESTHETIC MAISON LLC and AESTHETIC CASA LLC: https://www.safemedicines.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Nov...
NOVO NORDISK INC. v MEDIOAK PHARMACY LLC: https://www.safemedicines.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Nov...
NOVO NORDISK A/S AND NOVO NORDISK INC. v BOF MEDICAL CENTER, INC.: https://www.safemedicines.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Nov...
In the Aesthetic Maison and Medioak pharmacy cases, Novo Nordisk alleges that they're selling a product claiming to contain semaglutide without a prescription or FDA approval. In the BOF Medical case, they're claiming "trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair competition."
They're not suing for damages, just injunctive relief ordering the defendants to stop. It doesn't look like it even matters to their cases whether the products contain real semaglutide.
> Why is the FDA warning that some compounding pharmacies are using the salt forms of semaglutide and tirzepatide?
because $
$$$$$$$$$$$$
that's why. not safety. MONEY.
while there may be some very shady sources of fake grey/black market semiglutide that should be avoided, there are also the legal "compounders" who produce white-ish/grey market semiglutide. in the later case, it's the same active ingredient. the FDA, in it's infinite infallible wisdom (and $$$$$$$ pressure from pharma) refuses to acknowledge that while there is a tiny risk that the different buffers, processing methods, delivery and non-active ingredients, etc. have "not been studied" and might not be "less effective", that these are really small risks. tiny.
i feel like the FDA deliberately conflates the dangers of questionable overseas knock-offs with the legitimately pure, regulated, legal products of compounders.
are these guys violating a patent or two? meh? (note: this is a tort, but is not illegal) so sue them. but is it safe? it's as safe as anything else the FDA allows.
meanwhile we keep supporting a system of patents in medicine (and software) that are actively doing exactly the opposite of what the system was put in place for: stifling innovation instead of encouraging it. padding the rich cats pockets instead of giving the small guys a chance.
I've swapped to buying from Chinese manufacturers and reconstituting my own so I'm not exactly lining the pockets of Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk.
It’s a way to get the same medicine just through different suppliers and circumventing various restrictions/regulations, and then prepared by the compounding pharmacy for ingestion by the patient.
Common use cases are, in animals for example, you might need to put a dog a medication and the supplier may not manufacture the right size dose (or maybe your animal won’t eat pills so the compounding pharmacy reformulates it into a liquid)
My veterinarian recommended sticking with brand name meds for my dog even though I was having trouble due to the size of the pill. Her reasoning was compounded equivalents simply aren’t tested in any medical or academic trials, only brand name formulations are tested in trials, so there’s no guarantee of efficacy since you’re literally taking a formulation of a medication that has gone through zero scientific testing (the isolated ingredients or a similar formula may have trials and testing, but not the exact formula you’re taking)
Which is also why no compounded drug can be FDA approved.
Logically I want to trust compounding pharmacies and I want to believe the efficacY and side effects are equivalent to name brand.
But the fact that my veterinarian cautioned me against compounding my dog’s medicine gave me pause about compounding medicine for myself…
After that, I decided to just allow nature to take its course on my hairline.
Lots of drugs are bad for pregnant and/or nursing women. Propecia is not particularly special in this regard, nor is it especially dangerous compared to all the other drugs out there which are also bad for pregnant women.
"Do not handle" is a warning for topical formulations, just because those are intended to be absorbed transdermally.
It's a hugely important thing to do for your health in general, but the amount of effort needed to counteract the modern diet via exercise is absurd.
The alternative is eating better - better food, less calories. But for a lot of people, they have tried and failed to do this for years. Even people that have had a history of being able to do this successfully can find themselves struggling. And once you're fat, the feedback loops kick in and make it more and more difficult. Is it within everyone's power to not be fat? Yes. Is it significantly harder for some people for a variety of reasons? Also yes.
So we could act like this is a moral failing and fat people should just be fat until they manage to scrape together the willpower to ignore their body pushing them to eat, or we could recognize that these medications are extremely effective at helping tame those signals their body is sending. (Plus seeing a tons of other positive impact on things like fat deposits in the liver, insulin resistance, cardiovascular protection, sleep apnea, etc. - and these are seen even before significant weight loss occurs.)
I feel like there is a lot of hypocrisy going on around this. People asking overweight/obese people "why not just eat less?!" and people responding "GLP-1 medications help me do just that," and the critics essentially saying "it is unfair fair that this drugs helps you do the thing I claim I want you to do."
Also, calorie restriction, not exercise is what successful people use to lose weight. Exercise is highly recommended and will help you live a long and healthy life, but it won't help an Obese person loose >20 lbs of body fat. TDEE and calorie restriction will though.
"Why not do the more difficult thing instead of the very easy and cheap thing that also accomplishes your goal?" will always be a bizarre question to ask in earnest. The answer should be so glaringly obvious that the question just falls out of your head.
Someone made a drug, and they want all of the money for their work.
Maybe that's justified, maybe it isn't.
But because we use money as both our dopamine reward and also the entire basis of how we allocate all scarce resources in our finite reality, and because patents are the only way for them to get said dopamine reward/resources, the strat is to just let millions of people sit in the crossfire while we work out what kind of money they should get.
Citation needed.
After decades of suffering with weight problems (and resulting health issues), Ozempic brought about life-changing results in months. It is a fantastic drug, and I hope it becomes widely available as soon as possible.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-much-more-o...
So yeah, fsck these guys. I have _zero_ problems in that context with the compounders here.
Millions of peoples lives could be made better within months if this stuff was made freely available tomorrow. It would cause all manner of downstream benefits for society, in particular I think it would have a real impact on reducing some load on a healthcare industry that is buckling at the weight of our collective unhealthiness.
I honestly think the FDA should find a way to put the screws to NN such that they reduce the cost of this drug and license it at an affordable cost to the compounders.
It's simply that companies charge more in the US because they can.
And the reason they can is that the US hasn't got its sh*t together to stop the drug companies from doing this. For this, blame your political system and the power that money has to influence your politicians and set policy.
They could barely be bothered to change the name because they didn't want to lose brand mindshare.
Almost all drugs currently on the market are older than two years.
And yet, prices are still much higher in America than elsewhere.
Therefore I posit that greed is the motivator, not ROI.
Don't fall for the propaganda.
The President could issue an executive order saying Medicare won't pay a higher price than EU nations or Canada. If they want to raise their prices there, fine. But we're not going to be the ones paying through our nose because you think the American taxpayers have bigger bank accounts.
We don't live in a dictatorship, but the President absolutely has the power to say how much Medicare is willing to pay for a particular drug. President Biden could do this today, if he chose. The President can't say how much pharmaceutical companies may charge. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Medicare is authorized to negotiate drug prices in certain limited ways. But that doesn't extend to setting a maximum price by executive fiat. Instead of posting nonsense you could try reading the law.
https://www.cms.gov/inflation-reduction-act-and-medicare/med...
I'm not making things up, you're just ill informed.
https://www.cms.gov/files/document/medicare-drug-price-negot...
Right. It seems pretty obvious who is behind all these media articles proposing these drugs being given to all overweight people.
But it is not risk free either. Contaminations of all kinds are the worst issue (particularly with anything supposed to be injected, so never try it with insulin...), but the most pressing one is agent distribution. That's what causes a lot of people to OD on stuff cut with fentanyl - if the fent, the actual drug (say, heroin) and the fillers aren't properly mixed, you may end up with a bunch of pills with far higher doses than intended while other pills essentially consist of pure filler.
If you have a source to buy lyophilized semaglutide and some BAC water, you could certainly reconstitute it yourself and pick a dosage, or compound in some vitamin b12 or similar.
In practice for an average person, this means either buying them as research chemicals directly from china, or from resellers that mark it up by 10-50x. You might get a COA that testifies the chemical in question and it's purity level for that batch, and maybe that COA will actually match the batch in your vial. But you almost certainly won't get any guarantee on sterility. And there are reports of the contents of vials getting mislabeled, so people got entirely different products.
You can try to counter some of the sterility issues with filter syringes, etc., but you're only mitigating some risk, not eliminating it.