By Sam Bennison

To Your Health

To Your Health: Ozempic Shortage

Nov 7, 2023 | 5:13 PM

PRINCE GEORGE—Canada has experienced an Ozempic shortage for the past few months and currently their is no end in site. Brett Chiasson of Third Avenue Pharmacy believes the shortage stems from increased use and the federal government not wanting to pay top dollar.

One of the more common off label uses for it has been for weight loss. And sort of once that indication took off. Now there’s a lot of people using it sort of in the states as well as in Canada.

Brett Chiasson, 3rd Ave Pharmacy

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Ozempic is a drug that helps people with Type 2 diabetes release insulin and reduce blood sugar spikes. However, it also targets areas in the brain that makes people feel fuller. Even if it works for weight loss it is not approved for use in Canada and includes multiple side effects such as, and isn’t without its side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and constipation.

According to Chiasson, the second cause of the shortage is that the United States is willing to pay more for medication than Canada.

One issue that we’ve sort of been running into in Canada is the government kind of keeps cutting back what they want to pay for medications.So, these large pharmaceutical companies will just sell their medication in the states where they can get, you know, significantly more money for it.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel as a new alternative has just been approved in Canada. Mounjaro is a diabetes drug that works in the same way as Ozempic and is available to people with type 2 Diabetes.