Health
Fake Ozempic Is Circulating in Europe and Americas, WHO Warns
Bags of counterfeit Ozempic in London on Feb. 27.
Photographer: Jose Sarmento Matos/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The World Health Organization warned that fake batches of Novo Nordisk A/S’s hit diabetes drug Ozempic have been circulating amid soaring demand for the medicine, which some patients use to lose weight.
Three falsified batches were identified in Brazil and the UK in October of last year and in the US in December, the WHO said on Thursday. Though the global public health body has been monitoring growing numbers of reports of fake semaglutide, as Ozempic is known generically, since 2022, this is the first time it has issued an official warning notice.