the FDA just issued a warning saying that patients taking the compounded version of ozempic and rigovi for type 2 diabetes or weight loss should be careful about where they're getting the medication so there's a lot of confusion about these glp-1 Agonist drugs and compounding pharmacies so let's get a better understanding of exactly what is going on here the lower dose of cementide is branded as ozepic which is FDA approved for type 2 diabetes the higher dose of somaglitide is branded as wegovi which is FDA approved for obesity and for clarification when these drugs are being
studied in clinical trials they're always referred to in the study by the actual name of the active ingredients not the trade name in other words they don't refer to it as ozempic or rigovi they call it semaglitide and in the surmount 1 trial for example it's not called it's called terzapatide so pharmaceutical companies they take the drug and for marketing purposes they brand it as a different name usually a catchier name that is much easier to pronounce than the original one before we talk more in case you're wondering who I am my name is Mike
Hansen and I'm a board certified physician with training in Internal Medicine pulmonary disease and Critical Care Medicine soon I'll be board certified in obesity medicine I recently opened a lifestyle medicine clinic which includes weight loss and I prescribe these medications as well as the other glp-1 medication terzapatide also known as Manjaro so with that context I'll share with you my patients experience for whom I prescribe these drugs and the questions that they commonly ask particularly as it pertains to using a compounding pharmacy because the biggest issue that most people have with drugs is the cost
since most insurance plans don't cover them people usually have to pay out of pocket which if we're talking about bigovi that's running around thirteen hundred dollars per month Manjaro sixteen hundred dollars per month most people can't afford that but there's an alternative way of getting these drugs at a much lower cost by means of going through a compounding pharmacy now there are over 7 500 compounding pharmacies in the United States but not all of them compound some magnetite or to separatide and some of them are Bad actors sometimes a few rotten apples can spoil the
bunch but some of them they are trustworthy so how do you know which one that you can trust you need to make sure that the compounding pharmacy checks off all the right boxes in order to know that what you're getting is legit and I'll show you exactly how in a little bit but first let's look at the specific warning from the FDA so the FDA says patients should be aware that some products sold as some magnetide may not contain the same active ingredient as the FDA approved semaglotide products in May instead use the salt formulations
products containing the salts such as some magnetite sodium and some magnetite acetate have not been shown to be safe and effective patients should only obtain drugs containing some magnetide with a prescription from a licensed health care provider and only obtain medicines from State licensed pharmacies or Outsourcing facilities that are registered with the FDA so purchasing medicine online from unregulated unlicensed sources can expose patients to potentially unsafe products that have not undergone appropriate evaluation or approval or do not meet quality standards if you choose to use an online pharmacy definitely check with the fda's be safe
RX campaign so they have resources and tools that can assist in making safer more informed decisions when purchasing prescription medicine online so there you go these salt forms of cementide are different active ingredients than the approved drugs the key word there is active ingredient if you're considering getting a compounded version of this drug let me make it really easy for you to know if it's legit or not the way a legit compounding pharmacy operates particularly when it comes to ozempic and wigovi it goes like this the drug is manufactured by Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk does
not directly send ozempic orbigovi to a pharmacy instead they sell it to a distributor and the distributor then sells it to pharmacies including compounding pharmacies if it's a regular Pharmacy they simply resell you the product as is if it's a compounding pharmacy they take that original ozepik or wigovi and Tinker with it so to speak by ticker with it that means they're either modifying the dose or that might mean adding something else to it such as Vitamin B6 or B12 or possibly L-Carnitine in some instances this is what compounding is compounding pharmacies are allowed to
do this so long as they're operating at an FDA approved facility with proper sterile conditions in the drug in question is not considered to be a biological drug furthermore when a drug such as some maglotide or to step tide currently being listed by the FDA as being on its shortage list well depending on the circumstances compounded drugs can be made and distributed with fewer restrictions when the drug appears on the fda's drug shortages list so all of this is perfectly legal what is not legit is for compounding pharmacy to sell you the salt form of
semaglotide because it's a different active ingredient so this is specifically what the FDA is warning you about it's warning you about some magnetized sodium or some magnetite acetate which is used for research studies it's a different active ingredient so if this says if it says research purposes only on the bottle definitely do not use it if it says some magnetized sodium or some magnetite acetate definitely do not use it compounded smackotide without the sodium and without the acetate is fine like this one right here it's the same active ingredient used in ozympic and wegovi also
make sure to check that be safe RX website and look up the compounding pharmacy that you and or your doctor is considering make sure that facility is approved for sterile compounding make sure their facility is FDA approved okay make sure that they do not have any disciplinary actions and make sure they've been around for a while when my patients want ozepik or wigovi or majaro but their insurance doesn't cover it and let's say they can't afford the sixteen hundred dollars a month or whatever I offer them the option to go with a compounded Pharmacy that
I know is legit so that's how we do things and we get great results with that in my experience ozempic and rugovi they do tend to cause more side effects compared to Manjaro which is what the studies show particularly when it comes to nausea Manjaro does tend to get better results overall which is also what the studies show for example with the surmount 1 trial it showed that terzapatide caused an average of 22 weight loss at the 72 week Mark and for some aglotide it's about 15 so if you want to book a consult with
me I'll put a link right here I'll also put a link in the description below and in the meantime if you want to learn more about Manjaro and ozempic be sure to check out this video right here and don't forget to hit that Bell notification if you haven't done so already otherwise I'll see you in the next one and you'll be notified of when my next video comes out