CUT-price weight loss jabs costing as little as £10 a month could put UK slimmers at risk, as patents for Ozempic and Wegovy expire in India.
Pharmaceutical chiefs warned knock-off injections could be imported to the UK and sold on the black market for cheap.
Novo Nordisk’s exclusive hold on semaglutide – the appetite-suppressing ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic – came to an end last Friday in India.
The Danish drug giant’s patent has also expired in Canada, and will soon lapse in China, Brazil and Turkey – meaning the recipe for semaglutide will be free to use in these countries.
It’s still protected in the UK until 2031, but Brits could be at risk of “serious health risks” and “long term organ damage” if they try to get hold of cheaper foreign-made versions, experts warned.
Speaking to the Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC) today about the regulation of black market weight loss jabs, Dr Kieran Seyan, chief medical officer at Pharmacy2U said: “My personal concern is that we have just seen semaglutide – Wegovy – go off license in places like India, so this is going to be manufactured on a wide scale.
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“Not that it’s a dodgy drug but access to that illicit market may increase as a result.
“So are we going to see more of this.”
He questioned if regulators in the UK will be able to “keep up” with competition in the weight loss jab market.
Dr Leyla Hannbeck, CEO and executive chair of the Independent Pharmacies Association, said Brits should wait until weight loss drugs manufactured in India are checked and approved by UK medicines regulators.
She told The Sun: “Some people may be drawn to these products due to the cheap prices.
“But with so many fake medicines out there it is important that medicines are obtained through legitimate and regulated sources and used under the supervision of a healthcare professional, not via social media or other unregulated online avenues.
“Some of these products can be very harmful and pose serious risk to health.
“We advise the public not to obtain these medicines through unregulated routes or directly from India.”
India is one of the biggest suppliers of generic drugs, supplying around 20 per cent of global off‑patent medicines.
On the same day that Novo Nordisk’s patent for semaglutide expired in India, seven drugmakers announced they would be creating their own versions of the jabs, with prices ranging from £10 to £65 a month.
For millions of Brits paying for weight loss jabs privately, a month’s supply of Wegovy can cost over £200 at the highest dose – with prices even steeper for Mounjaro, made by American drug company Eli Lilly.
The cheapest drug launched in India was by Eris Life Sciences, named Sundae and sold in a multi-dose vial for around £10.33.
Glenmark also launched a product costing between £10.39 and £14.08 per month.
Alkem Laboratories released three semaglutide brands named Semasize, Obesama and Hepaglide, sold at a starting price of £14.41 per month.
Don’t try and buy cheaper ‘own label’ jabs in the UK
Why shouldn’t people try to get hold of foreign-made drugs on the black market?
Dr Hannbeck said: “These generic medicines manufactured in India must go through UK regulation to ensure safety check before they can be made available in the UK.
“We advise the public not to obtain these medicines through unregulated routes or directly from India because there are a lot of counterfeit medicines around and these can pose serious health risks.
What are the risks of doing so?
Dr Hannbeck said: “Obtaining medicines from unregulated places abroad will increase the risk of obtaining harmful counterfeit medicines.
“There are a lot of counterfeit medicines around – due to the popularity of weight loss injections – distributed by criminal gangs.
“These fake medicines can pose serious health risks and long term organ damage.”
Zydus Lifesciences announced three brands named Alterme, Mashema and Semaglyn, which will sell reusable pens for around £17.60.
Torrent Pharmaceuticals launched oral tablets alongside its jabs, named Sembolic and Semalix, which will cost at least £31.24 per month.
Dr Reddy’s Laboratories also released a 2mg and 4mg drug to treat diabetes, with a monthly supply costing £33.62.
Meanwhile, Sun Pharmaceutical, one of the top generics manufacturers in the world, launched two treatments – Noveltreat for weight loss and Sematrinity for type 2 diabetes.
Noveltreat will cost between £28.80 and £65 every month while Sematrinity will cost between £24 and £42.
Figures released by UCL at the start of this year estimate that up to 1.6million people in Britain have used weight-loss drugs in the past year.
Most are buying the meds privately rather than accessing them through the NHS – so it’s no wonder people are eager to get their hands on cheaper versions.
Dr Seyan said this isn’t the first time patent expiry has inspired people to try and access drugs outside of UK regulations.
He said: “We’ve seen it before; we saw it with PrEP [Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, which is used to reduce the risk of HIV].
“It wasn’t freely available in the UK and even healthcare practitioners were advising patients to get medication from abroad.
“We’ve got precedent there that it’s going to happen.”
Generic medications contain the same active ingredients as brand-name drugs and act in the same way on patients.
They may differ in size, colour or shape, and can include different non-active ingredients such as starches, sugars or colourings.
But none of these changes affect how they work in the body.
They also meet exactly the same standards of quality, safety and efficacy as all other licensed drugs.
Cheaper foreign-made jabs making their way to the UK through murky channels might not necessarily be fake.
In fact, Britain’s medicines watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said many of products they’ve seized in black market raids have in fact contained the ingredients they claim to.
But they’re still unsafe to use, as they won’t have been subject to the strict manufacturing rules in the UK.
Dosages might not be the same as reputable jabs sold here and there’s no way of checking whether they were safely manufactured.
Andy Morling, head of the criminal enforcement unit at the MHRA, told the HSCC today: “What we’ve found from the products that we have seized to date is that it is the genuine product 99 per cent of the time. That doesn’t make it safe.
“It wasn’t produced in accordance with genuine manufacturing processes, the sterility is questionable. The dosage is questionable. All those things that we’re well aware of.
“It’s absolutely not safe but it is the genuine product.”
Dr Helen Wall, resident GP for BBC Breakfast, told The Sun: “My ultimate advice would be to avoid buying these medicines from social media, beauty clinics, or unregulated sellers.
“You should always, always go to a regulated clinic or a clinician that’s registered, whether that’s a qualified healthcare professional or a registered pharmacy.
“It’s medical treatment at the end of the day. It’s a prescription-only medicine, and people need to be fully assessed and monitored.”