'Weight loss drugs can be life changing but are not without risks,' says Dr Vishnu Radhakrishnan as he explains the truth behind Ozempic and Mounjaro.
Danish pharma major Novo Nordisk on Friday launched its blockbuster type 2 diabetes treatment injection Ozempic, globally popular for its weight-loss benefits.
Abbott will exclusively distribute and market Extensior in the country, becoming the second company to secure sole distribution rights for Novo's semaglutide portfolio in India, after Emcure Pharma.
While the introduction of branded generics is likely to accelerate volumes for GLP-1 agonists, value growth may moderate because of price erosion.
'Any promotional activity carried out under the pretext of disease awareness, influencer engagement, corporate campaigns, or similar activities that create brand recall/product visibility of the prescription shall also be treated as violations.'
Inspections conducted across 49 entities including pharmacies, wholesalers, and clinics to detect violations and misleading marketing practices.
At the heart of this debate is Section 3(d) of the Patents Act, a safeguard designed to prevent drugmakers from extending monopoly protection through trivial modifications to existing medicines.
The semaglutide patent expiry next year could unleash a wave of generic versions from Indian drugmakers, with prices expected to go lower -- at least 80 per cent.
In India, the drug is not licensed for weight loss. but as anti-diabetic medication, warns Dr Chandrakant Lahariya.
'As more patients are prescribed these drugs, intolerance due to gastrointestinal and other side effects will become more visible, leading to higher discontinuation rates.'
Emcure Pharmaceuticals on Monday said it saw Poviztra, its newly launched semaglutide brand, as a "long-term" opportunity in India's fast-evolving obesity and cardiometabolic therapy market, even as price competition in the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) segment intensified.
'What the US appears to be doing is to force India to be "the buyer of last resort", on whom their products can be dumped, 1.4 billion people have to eat something, so why not eat American corn?' 'What is exercising the Trump lot is the fact that most of the farms are in solidly Republican Midwestern states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
Although India's hopes to nab the big one went unrealised, it was heartening to see filmmaker Payal Kapadia and her globally acclaimed creation All We Imagine As Light, among the nominees for Best Non-English Film and Best Director. Aside from that disappointment, the Golden Globes remain a ho-hum affair livened up by occasional display of wit and wildness.
'Someone posts a job on LinkedIn and there are a thousand resumes in an hour? This is not the America IT professionals are used to.' 'Once they lose their job, it's impossible to get a job.'
Study suggested that constant use of Semaglutide may be linked to development of a condition called non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy.
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