The affected patients suffered hypoglycemia and seizures, serious side effects that indicate that the product they injected contained insulin instead of Ozemopic's active ingredient, semaglutide, the BASG (Federal Office for Health Security) said in a statement published on Monday.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) warned last week that pre-filled pens were falsely labeled as diabetes medicine. The manufacturing company, Novo Nordisk, has warned about the growth of the sale of counterfeit doses of Ozempic, as well as the drug Wegovy, which is sold illegally on the Internet.
Although only Wegovy is approved for obesity, the fact that Ozempic also causes weight loss has led the United States and Europe to use the drug, although its use is not approved. This has led to a lack of Ozempic, which has been trafficked by criminal organizations, BAGS said.
The Federal Office for Health Security has not coded the exact number of affected patients and their seriousness.
Austria's criminal intelligence service said yesterday that the affected batches probably came from somewhere other than a pharmacy and doses may be in circulation.
Although these are currently suspected to be counterfeit one-milligram packs, it cannot be ruled out that pre-filled pen packs with different strengths are also affected.
