Why Is There So Much Off-Brand Oral Ozempic for Sale Online?

As a pharmacist, I can appreciate the excitement in the rise in oral semaglutide, since it is an easier route than injectables, says Melinda Lee, a pharmacist who runs the pharmaceutical packaging company Parcel Health as well as a GLP-1 drug availability database..

While taking a drug by mouth might be more appealing than a needle, when it comes to GLP-1s, the evidence that theyre as effective just isnt there yet, she says.. Unlike the brand-name drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, compounded versions havent been rigorously tested in clinical trials, and theyre not approved by the Food and Drug Administration..

I do not consider them, I do not prescribe them, and I do not endorse them, she says.. The only approved oral GLP-1 drug is Rybelsus, a pill for type 2 diabetes from Novo Nordisk, the same company that makes semaglutide and sells it as Ozempic and Wegovy..

Its extraordinarily difficult to bypass those mechanisms to allow enough drug to be absorbed in an efficient manner, he says.. Ozempics maker, Novo Nordisk, managed to make an oral version of semaglutide by adding an ingredient called SNAC, which acts as an absorption enhancer..

WIRED also reached out to a number of other telehealth companies offering oral semaglutide and tirzepatide, looking for more information about how they source these medications and what clinical evidence they use to back up assertions of efficacy, including Strut, Henry Meds, Willow, Zealthy, and Ivy RX, none of which responded to repeated requests for comment..

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