Diabetes drug Ozempic is shown at a pharmacy in Toronto on Wednesday, April 19, 2023. British Columbia is enacting a new regulation to ensure the province's diabetes patients do not face a shortage of the drug widely known as Ozempic. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Joe O'Connal
VICTORIA – British Columbia is bringing in a new regulation immediately to ensure diabetes patients don’t face a shortage of the drug Ozempic, touted by celebrities for its weight loss side-effects.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday the change will ensure patients in B.C. and Canada needing Ozempic to treat their Type 2 diabetes will continue to have access to that medication and other drugs that may require protection in the future.
Dix said the regulation will help prevent online or mail-order sales of Ozempic to people who don’t live in Canada and who are not in B.C. to make a purchase.
“We do not bring drugs to B.C. for them to be re-exported to the United States,” Dix said at a news conference.
“Here in Canada, we have to protect the interests of B.C. patients. This is a legislated regulation response to a real problem. This action will address this problem.”
The changes come after the discovery that about 15 per cent of Ozempic prescriptions were being filled at two Vancouver locations for shipment to the United States.
Earlier this month, the Nova Scotia College of Physicians and Surgeons suspended the licence of a doctor living in the United States who the college said wrote thousands of prescriptions for Ozempic, a drug some patients are seeking to help with weight loss.
Dix said the College of Pharmacists of BC will be responsible for ensuring its registrants comply with the new regulation.
The government said in a statement that increasingly, U.S. customers are turning to Canadian online pharmacies to purchase drugs at prices lower than at home.
Dix said he’s directed BC PharmaCare, the provincially funded program that helps patients pay for drugs, to continue to monitor and review the data on Ozempic to assess the impact of the new regulation.
BC PharmaCare provides coverage for Ozempic as a second-line therapy for Type 2 diabetes to help patients manage blood-sugar levels when metformin is not effective.
The cost is not reimbursed for weight loss.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2023.
