Crucial diabetes medication back on shelves after shortage from off-label weight loss use

ATLANTA — A critical medication for diabetics faced shortages, after off-label use for weight loss.

Now, Ozempic is back on shelves.

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Channels 2′s Jorge Estevez talked with Dr. Jayne Morgan of Piedmont this past week to make sure people get the medicine they need.

“It is absolutely good news for diabetics, and this is how this drug was originally intended. And we want to take diabetes as seriously as possible as we continue to see such an uptick in cases and diabetes is directly correlated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks,” Morgan said.

Morgan said preventing people from trying to get the drug for weight loss off-label uses like weight loss, doctors need to be responsible and only prescribe it to those who need it.

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Earlier this month, Channel 2′s Ashli Lincoln investigated the shortage. She spoke with Dr. Hirsch, a professor at the University of Washington Medicine’s Diabetes Institute.

He said while production has ramped up, the demand isn’t going away. Dr. Hirsch says people are paying thousands of dollars a month, and even traveling to Canada for the drug.

“And now what’s happened, because of the Americans going to British Columbia, now they’re running out of it and they’re having the problem. So we have created an international problem here,” he said.

Ozempic says it has been working since October to increase production. Trulicity reports that they will have supply back to normal by the end of March. Monujaro says all of its doses are back after a two-month shortage.

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