Semaglutide is the new wonder drug: the first slimming molecule that keeps the promise of rapid and concrete results, so much so that it has earned the title of scientific discovery of 2023 according to Science. Everyone wants it, everyone is looking for it, and the manufacturer, the Danish NovoNordisk, can’t keep up. This is why shortages have been recorded all over the world (including Italy) for months, mainly affecting type 2 diabetes patients, who need it to regulate their blood sugar levels, and who have had difficulty finding it in pharmacies since its slimming effect was discovered.
The growing demand for semaglutide has fueled the birth of a parallel market of counterfeit products and more or less reliable galenic preparations. And the phenomenon, at least in the United States, is now out of control, so much so that it has pushed the American drug agency, the FDA, to issue an alert, to warn the population of the risks deriving from accidental overdose of semaglutide.
As explained by the American authorities, in recent months the reports of accidents with the dosage of semaglutide – sometimes serious enough to require hospitalization – have increased in a worrying way. And already at the end of 2023, calls to US poison control centers related to the drug had been 15 times higher than in 2019, when the use of semaglutide was still reserved exclusively for patients with type 2 diabetes.
Semaglutide is in fact an injectable drug, which in the original, “branded” version is sold in easy-to-use pre-filled pens. Galenic preparations must instead be measured by the user, with the risk of errors and accidents during administration. And in the case of counterfeit products, the content may easily not be the one reported on the label, with all the risks that this entails.
In fact, investigations conducted by the FDA have highlighted several incidents caused by the inexperience of patients or those administering the injections (in some cases even health care workers), which have led to the administration of doses up to 20 times higher than the correct one. The symptoms in these cases are serious, and include debilitating nausea and vomiting, fainting, headaches, dehydration, but also pancreatitis and gallstones, sometimes severe enough to require hospitalization.