The affect of the continuing Ozempic scarcity, which has been skilled since early 2022, continues to trigger important considerations for Australians dwelling with kind 2 diabetes. Diabetes Australia shares and has expressed these considerations to the Therapeutic Items Administration (TGA) and we’ll proceed to advocate for prioritised entry to those diabetes medicines for folks dwelling with diabetes. In latest correspondence, Diabetes Australia has inspired the TGA to completely examine the shortages of quite a few diabetes-related medicines and merchandise lately, and redouble efforts to make sure Australians might be assured that offer chains are enough to fulfill their wants.
On this context of the continuing scarcity, Diabetes Australia acknowledges the affect that latest media protection could have had on folks dwelling with diabetes relating to the TGA cracking down on compounded semaglutide-like merchandise – semaglutide being the energetic ingredient in medicines similar to Ozempic. Nonetheless, this media protection serves as a great reminder of the protection dangers related to unapproved merchandise.
In response to public well being and security considerations, the TGA introduced in February a focused session course of aimed toward stopping the compounding of medicines containing semaglutide by compounding pharmacists. In latest weeks there was outstanding media protection of search warrants executed on pharmacies relating to the illegal manufacture, provide and export of such merchandise.
The one TGA authorized merchandise containing semaglutide are recognized underneath the commerce names Ozempic and Wegovy.
Diabetes Australia helps the TGA’s determination to cease the compounding of medicines containing semaglutide. These merchandise are ‘unapproved’ therapeutic items and haven’t been evaluated by the TGA for security, high quality and efficacy. When a drugs is compounded, it might probably have a unique power and completely different elements from related medicines authorized by the TGA. Extra details about the protection of semaglutide-like merchandise might be discovered on the TGA web site.