Get the latest tech news

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

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic are injectable medications—but a strange new market has emerged selling oral “compounded” versions online, despite a lack of evidence that they work.

Robert MacArthur, director of pharmacy at the Rockefeller University Hospital in New York, says there’s a long precedent in the US of compounding custom-made drugs to meet the needs of patients—whether due to shortages or because a specific patient’s needs aren’t being met by what’s available. SubMagna is sold by the Professional Compounding Centers of America (PCCA), which conducted proof-of-concept studies showing that, when added to semaglutide, it was absorbed by human oral tissues in a lab dish and was detectable in the blood plasma of mice after administration. 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.

Get the Android app