Is weight loss with Ozempic and Wegovy worth the price?

Story in a flash:

• Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy, has become “Europe's most valuable listed company.”
• Ozempic and Wegovy have helped some patients gain control over blood pressure and reduce weight, allowing them to enjoy life.
• Many other patients have experienced serious life-altering side effects; many lawsuits have been filed claiming that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Mounjaro, did not warn them about the drugs' risks.

Novo Nordisk's profits go up as customers' weight goes down

Are the new weight loss drugs, such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, the miracle solution that will help millions of people achieve a healthier weight, improve their health, and enjoy life again? For the Danish company, Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, they are a miracle solution — for greatly and rapidly increasing the company’s bottom line as they have become blockbuster drugs, according to BBC reporter Adrienne Murray:

Such has been the rise in its global sales that its manufacturer, Danish drug-maker Novo Nordisk, last year became Europe's most valuable listed company.

As Murray has shown in the graph below, the company’s profits are soaring.

Can't keep up with demand

To keep up with demand, Novo Nordisk’s parent company, Novo, will buy Catalent, a contract manufacturer in New Jersey, for $16.5 billion cash, as Axios reported:

Novo Holdings, the parent company of Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk, agreed to buy New Jersey-based contract manufacturer Catalent for around $16.5 billion in cash.

. . . The $63.50 per share purchase price represents a 16.5% premium to Friday's closing price, and a 39.1% premium to trading before Catalent's board announced a strategic review in late August.

As part of the deal, Novo Nordisk will buy three of Catalent's fill-finish sites from Novo Holdings for $11 billion.

Has a diabetes drug become a weight loss miracle?

Ozempic was originally developed as a drug to help type 2 diabetics lower their blood sugar and improve their health. It was discovered that weight loss was a “side effect” of the drug and it began being prescribed for people with a BMI of at least 27 with weight-related health conditions or people with a BMI of 30 or more with/without health-related illnesses. Self-injected once a week, Ozempic is being prescribed off-label for weight loss, Wegovy is a higher dosage of semaglutide than Ozempic and is FDA-approved for weight loss. Mounjaro is a similar drug manufactured by Eli Lilly. Mounjaro’s active ingredient is tirzepatide which targets 2 hormones instead of just one hormone as Ozempic and Wegovy do. In addition to the drugs, diet and exercise are key components in weight loss.

Some people who have been taking it for Type 2 diabetes (TD2) and/or weight loss have been very happy with the results. Overweight individuals, including the morbidly obese, have found it life-giving. Seven people who’ve been on the drug for 1 ½ and 2/ ½ years, who NBC News Breaking Health reporter Aria Bendix located and talked with agreed that while the medication helped them lose weight and/or lower their blood sugar, they still had to work to maintain those changes:  

All generally agreed that the medication was not a fast pass to good health. Although Ozempic has helped them either shed pounds, lower their blood sugar levels or both (reasons for taking the medication vary from person to person), maintaining those changes takes effort, they said.

One person she spoke with was Edward Matias, 45, who had been on Ozempic for a year and seven months. He told Bendix that you can't just take the drug to lose weight and to continue eating as before. As a diabetic, despite his 80-pound weight loss, he still has to be careful about foods high in sugar or carbohydrates:

“This isn’t a magic bullet or pill . . . “It’s not the fountain of youth. It takes work and commitment. If people are asking for this med because they want to lose weight and think they can eat anything at all, they’re in for a rude awakening.”

Matias said that because of his diabetes, he still has to be careful about eating foods high in sugar or carbohydrates. But his weight has dropped from about 310 pounds to 230 while taking Ozempic, he said. 

According to most of the people Bendix interviewed, Ozempic isn’t a cure-all, or a magic bullet, as Matias described it. Instead, it helped them lose enough weight so that they could make lifestyle changes they previously couldn’t, such as exercising. One such individual is Barbie Jackson-Williams who weighed 400 pounds before starting Ozempic and is now 180 pounds lighter.  

Jackson-Williams said that losing weight has led her to feel more energetic and less inclined to be stationary.

“I want to be active. I want to be doing stuff. I can’t sit and watch TV like I used to,” she said.

Jackson-Williams credits her 180-pound weight loss to a combination of taking Ozempic and working out. She previously weighed more than 400 pounds, used an oxygen mask and slept in a recliner because she couldn’t breathe while lying flat. 

“Just walking out from my apartment to my mom’s car, I’d have to sit for 10 minutes just so I could catch my breath,” she said.

Now, Jackson-Williams said, she walks around the track and uses the cross-trainer at the gym. Her blood sugar dropped to prediabetic levels and she no longer needs oxygen support.

“I used to be dead from the waist down. Very dead. But I’m not now,” she said.

Lifetime prescription needed

These weight-loss drugs must be taken for life to maintain the benefits. People who have gone off them have found that the weight has come back. Bendix noted that even people on these drugs have noticed weight creeping back up if they neglected their exercise routine or went off their diet. 

Weight loss drugs help offset weight gain caused by other drugs

Ozempic and Wegovy are also being prescribed to a different patient population than the one it is generally approved for. To offset the adverse effects of other prescribed drugs, psychiatrists are prescribing these to patients whose weight has increased as a result of anti-depressants and antipsychotics, the UK's Daily Mail reported. This is particularly astonishing since anecdotal, yet credible, evidence shows that drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are associated with an increased risk of suicide. Senior Health Reporter Cassidy Morrison reported that of the "13 leading mental health facilities nationwide, nearly half were recommending the diabetes drug-turned-fat-loss jab for their patients.”

She also noted that suicidal ideation was an adverse effect reported by the manufacturer; people who had suicidal thoughts were not included in the study:

Clinical trials for Wegovy and Ozempic, both versions of semaglutide but different dosages, screened for depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts or behavior, meaning all patients with those conditions were excluded.

At the same time, Wegovy’s drug information label does include a small section that reads: ‘Suicidal behavior and ideation have been reported in clincal trials with other weight management products. Monitor patients treated with WEGOVY for the emergency and worsening of depression, suicidal thoughts or behavior, and/or any nusual changes in mood or behavior.’

The label also said patients should immediately stop taking the medications if they being to experience these symptoms.

Many people cannot stay on Ozempic and Wegovy 

Price

The price tag is one reason why people may stop taking it, since at over $1,200 per month, this drug is ultimately unaffordable if insurance doesn’t cover the cost of the prescription, or greatly subsidizes it.

Serious side effects

Price is not the only reason why people may go off these drugs. There are also some common adverse effects of the drug such as diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, nausea, heartburn, and abdominal pain. 

Some of the adverse effects many find intolerable. Best Life reporter Lauren Gray lists seven of them:

• Gastrointestinal effects:

These often include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, constipation, gassiness, excessive belching, bloating, and diarrhea. For some people, those side effects can become too much to bear.

• Stomach paralysis, also called gastroparesis:

This past summer, two patients—Joanie Knight and Emily Wright—came forward to share their harrowing Ozempic horror stories with CNN. Both women told the outlet that they now suffer from the condition even after stopping their Ozempic regimen, leaving them to contend with unrelenting vomiting, pain, and stomachs that can no longer empty properly after eating.

"I wish I never touched it. I wish I'd never heard of it in my life," Knight told CNN. "This medicine made my life hell. So much hell. It has cost me money. It cost me a lot of stress; it cost me days and nights and trips with my family. It's cost me a lot, and it's not worth it. The price is too high," she warned.

• Painful rash:

In rare instances, patients may also find that they are allergic to Ozempic. When this occurs, it can cause a painful rash on the skin.

In fact, Maria. E. Rosas, MD, a professor in Texas, shared her own experience of developing serious dermatological symptoms in a Sept. 2023 article for Newsweek. Soon after being prescribed Ozempic to treat her type 2 diabetes, Rosas developed an "excruciating pain" that "never disappeared" in her back, shoulders, and arms.

However, that wasn't the worst of it. "In August, a worse burning pain in my genital area and buttocks appeared," Rosas wrote. "I noticed 'pieces' of skin on my toilet seat and on the tissue paper when I cleaned the area. I checked, and my genitals, anus, and buttocks were severely burned, some areas with charred skin. . .

• Skin aging:

Known as "Ozempic face," the skin changes associated with the medication seem to accelerate the signs of premature aging, including wrinkling and hollowing.

• Eating disorders:

Weight loss drugs fundamentally change your relationship with food: While taking them, your cravings dissipate. While most people find that they revert to old habits and regain the weight after discontinuing Ozempic, others find it difficult to recalibrate and turn to disordered eating habits.

• Blurred vision:

According to some patient reports, people taking Ozempic may also experience acute vision loss. . . . 

However, research has yet to confirm the anecdotal evidence suggesting vision loss as a side effect. "They [doctors] said there are probably more people out there with vision problems, but they're not correlating it with the Ozempic," [Pam} Peters [who experienced acute vision loss] said.

• Gallbladder problems:

[S]ome patients have reported serious gallbladder problems while taking Ozempic, leading to a spike in emergency room visits, The New York Post reported in June 2023.

"When you don't eat for a long period of time or you lose weight quickly, your liver releases extra cholesterol into the bile. Fast weight loss can also prevent the gallbladder from emptying properly," the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) explains.

. . . In some cases, this can result in hospitalization or even the surgical removal of the gallbladder.

Many who have used these drugs have found the adverse effects, especially those associated with gastroparesis, so serious that many lawsuits have already been filed against Novo Nordisk, as Daily Mail reporter Lewis Pennock explained:

A woman who will suffer diarrhea for the rest of her life after using Ozempic is among dozens of patients who are suing the maker of the blockbuster weight loss drug over claims it left them with crippling stomach paralysis, a DailyMail.com investigation reveals.

Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, is facing lawsuits from patients across America who say they experienced extreme side effects which they were allegedly not warned about.

Thousands more patients have also come forward to claim they suffered adverse reactions to the drugs and attorneys say many more could join the growing legal campaign.

Most of the patients claim they suffered from gastroparesis, which is the medical name for paralysis of the stomach. The condition, which can be life-threatening, causes a build-up of food in the gut and symptoms include nausea, vomiting and severe pain.

DailyMail.com reviewed more than a dozen lawsuits filed since November by patients who were diagnosed with gastroparesis after using Ozempic and Wegovy, including some who suffered 'life-threatening' bowel injuries and face lifelong consequences.

In all of the lawsuits, Novo Nordisk is accused of failing to properly warn about the risk of gastroparesis on the drugs' packaging.

Pennock also reported that at least ten lawsuits have been filed against Eli Lilly for failing to properly warn about Mounjaro's risks.

Thyroid cancer risk

Dr. Chuck Dinnerstien, in an article for the American Council of Science and Health, explained that Ozempic also has a black-box warning, the most severe warning that the FDA has for a drug.

Ozempic comes with a black box warning, the FDA’s highest safety warning, for the possible development of medullary thyroid cancer and multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2 (MEN-2). [2] 

Wegovy and Mounjaro also have black-box warnings. 

Check back with Frontline News to learn what is responsible for these adverse effects, the different causes of weight gain, and how some manage their weight without weight loss drugs.