Australian Doctor 11th April 2025 | Page 12

12 NEWS

12 NEWS

11 APRIL 2025 ausdoc. com. au

Doctors sent Ozempic warnings

Ozempic is PBS listed for diabetes only.
Antony Scholefield HEALTH officials have started a
mass letter mail-out to doctors they suspect are using the PBS to prescribe subsidised semaglutide to patients without diabetes.
Without subsidies, Ozempic— the only PBS-subsidised brand of semaglutide— costs $ 150 for a prefilled pen.
But despite widespread off-label prescribing for weight loss, it remains TGA and PBS listed for diabetes only.
PBS criteria limit subsidies for initial semaglutide scripts to patients for whom SGLT-2 inhibitors are inadequate or contraindicated and who are“ inadequately responsive to at least one of metformin, a sulfonylurea [ or ] insulin”.
The Department of Health and Aged Care says it has identified the top 10 % of doctors writing PBS scripts for patients without any identifiable history of type 2 diabetes.
It has started sending letters to these doctors to“ remind” them of the PBS criteria for semaglutide and that no off-label prescribing is PBS funded.
The department has refused to provide example letters to Australian Doctor or say exactly how many letters have been sent out.
However, it says the campaign was agreed with medical stakeholders at a meeting in February and was framed as educational.
Government data show that PBS
scripts for semaglutide grew from 400,000 in 2021 to one million in 2022 and then to almost two million in 2023 and 2024.
Last year, they cost taxpayers over $ 230 million.
The TGA said Ozempic would remain in shortage throughout 2025 and that it was urging doctors only to prescribe the drug for its indication of diabetes.
It called for people to report potentially illegal prescription drug advertising on TikTok.
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‘ Generic drugs do not work’

Ciara Seccombe“ I’ VE seen antibiotics that cause allergies, blood pressures that won’ t go down, anaesthetised patients who won’ t sleep.”
This is Professor Minhua Zheng talking about his experiences working as a surgeon in Shanghai, China, and his fears that the drugs do not work anymore.
He is one of 20 Chinese doctors who have raised the alarm about domestically produced generic drugs being used in hospitals.
“ There are widespread concerns in the industry that procurement prices are too low, prompting unethical companies to cut corners to reduce costs, affecting the efficacy of drugs,” they wrote in a letter to the Shanghai Municipal Medical Security Bureau.
The doctors said they felt helpless because of the lack of access to alternative drug brands.
Since 2018, drug companies in China have competed for massive annual government contracts to supply medicines to public hospitals, creating a race to the bottom in terms of price and, if doctors are to be believed, quality as well.
As an example, some have referred to an aspirin tablet available to patients as a result of a tender process with the government, where each pill costs less than one US cent.
China’ s National Healthcare Security Administration said it had investigated the generic medications that had been questioned by the doctors and had found no issues, suggesting that the complaints were a product of“ subjective feelings”.
The generic policy was meant to take some pressure off the Chinese health system.
However, some have said it is fuelling distrust in a system already plagued by accusations of profiteering and injustice.