Austria
Already several hospital cases due to incorrect “Ozempic”
A pen with the original Ozempic preparation. photo
© –/Novo Nordisk/dpa
The diabetes remedy is currently very popular as a slimming agent. Counterfeits are already in circulation. The first potentially fatal incidents have now become known.
According to Austrian authorities, health-threatening situations have already occurred in several cases following the use of counterfeit diabetes medications. These could have led “to death without immediate medical treatment,” the Federal Criminal Police Office reported on Monday Vienna. Previously, only one case was known of a 31-year-old woman from Salzburg who had used a suspected counterfeit product “Ozempic” and then had to be treated in a hospital with serious side effects. According to her lawyers, the woman had obtained the drug as a weight loss medicine from a Salzburg cosmetic surgeon.
“Ozempic” is approved for the treatment of diabetes, but is currently also very popular as a diet medication. According to the Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG), criminals are taking advantage of the current supply shortages to make money with counterfeits. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam warned last week that counterfeit “Ozempic” diabetes pens had appeared in the European Union and Great Britain. The spraying aids with labels in German came from wholesalers in Austria and Germany.
The Federal Criminal Police Office in Vienna pointed out differences between the counterfeit and the original: The fake spray aids are therefore a darker blue and have a completely transparent viewing window instead of a gray one. On the counterfeit the adjustment ring for the dosage can be extended, but on the original it is not. The fake needles are four millimeters long, the real ones are six millimeters.
Insulin instead of semaglutide?
The Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG) reported on Monday that several patients had already had to be treated in hospital. It was said that the counterfeit drug probably contained insulin instead of the active ingredient semaglutide.
According to the Federal Criminal Police Office, the people in Austria who have so far been affected by side effects obtained the counterfeit products from a doctor in Austria. The cases were assigned to a specific production batch. Investigators warned that more syringes from the same batch could be in circulation or in stock at other doctors.
According to her lawyers, the 31-year-old from Salzburg is only slightly overweight and not diabetic. She has received the drug “Ozempic” from the Salzburg doctor three times since the beginning of the year. The fourth time she was apparently sold a counterfeit version, said Lisa Holzmann from the law firm Dr. Hermann Holzmann in Innsbruck.
The young woman spent a night in the hospital. “It could have ended completely differently, namely with death,” Holzmann told the German Press Agency. The lawyer held out the prospect of civil and criminal action against the doctor and his supplier. The supplier is not a pharmacy, she said, without giving further details.