By Christy Santhosh
(Reuters) -Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk said on Tuesday it has filed 14 new lawsuits in the United States against the sale of unapproved versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in its popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic.
The new lawsuits target companies producing compounded versions of semaglutide “under the fake guise of personalization”, Novo said.
Novo told Reuters its filing lawsuits against telehealth firms, compounding pharmacies and medical spas, including Prism Aesthetics, Mochi Health and Fella Health.
Some of these companies have also been named in Eli Lilly’s lawsuits, which accuse them of selling knockoff versions of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Lilly’s weight loss drug Zepbound.
However, Novo has not filed a lawsuit against major telehealth firm Hims & Hers, which extended its losses nearly 11% in afternoon trade after reporting weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue.
Compounders copy brand-name medicines that are in short supply by combining, mixing or altering drug ingredients to meet demand.
These companies were temporarily allowed to produce compounded doses of Novo’s obesity and diabetes drugs when the Food and Drug Administration declared them in short supply.
When the agency later banned the sale of these copies, Hims and Hers shifted to creating versions of semaglutide in personalized doses not offered by branded manufacturers.
Novo’s lawsuits allege that telehealth providers violate state corporate practice of medicine laws by improperly influencing doctors’ decisions and steering patients toward knockoff compounded “semaglutide” under the guise of personalized medicine.
Novo said these are unapproved knockoffs, often made with illicit foreign active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), and have not been proven safe or effective.
(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury and Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Diana Jones, Jonathan Stempel and Amina Niasse; Editing by Sahal Muhammed, Devika Syamnath and Tasim Zahid)
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