Indian drugmaker Dr Reddy’s gets Brazil regulator nod to sell generic Ozempic

Nov 5 (Reuters) – Indian drugmaker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories said on Thursday it had received regulatory approval in Brazil to market and sell a generic version of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic.

• Brazil has 16.6 million adults aged between 20 and 79 living with diabetes, and ranks sixth globally in terms of the number of adults living with diabetes, said Dr Reddy’s

• The country’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA)authorised generic semaglutide to treat adults with insufficiently controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus, alongside diet and exercise

• The regulatory body had denied approval for the drug in April its application failed to meet all regulatory requirements

• The once-weekly drug will be available in 2 mg and 4 mg doses in a pre-filled injector pen

• Dr Reddy’s has been banking on generic versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and weight-loss drug Wegovy, as a major growth driver in India and a few global markets

• It had recalled batches of generic semaglutide in Canada earlier this year after it found an impurity in the active ingredient

• It will relaunch the drug in Canada this quarter and is targeting launches in Latin America and Africa in the coming months, it said

(Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)