A pharmacist holds an Ozempic demonstration pen in Oshawa last October.EDUARDO LIMA/The Globe and Mail
The price of Canada’s best-selling drug, Ozempic, is starting to plummet.
Generic forms of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, have begun to hit pharmacy shelves. The first product widely available is from Toronto-headquartered Apotex Inc., which is pricing its version of Ozempic at less than a third of the cost of the brand name.
Meanwhile, Danish drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk NVO-N, the maker of Ozempic, announced Tuesday it would start offering discounts to patients not covered by insurance so they could pay the generic price for the brand-name product.
Semaglutide medications are typically prescribed for Type 2 diabetes and weight loss.
The industry expects demand to climb as prices drop and more patients can afford it.
“This whole market is going to be changing so much in the coming months,” said Tracey Phillips, chief pharmacy officer at virtual health care provider Felix Health.
How will cheaper versions of Ozempic tip the scales?
Ozempic is by far the best-selling drug in Canada, with $2.9-billion in sales in 2025. That’s more than three times the next best-selling drug, according to aggregated prescription data collected by IQVIA Canada, an analytics company.
Ozempic is authorized by Health Canada primarily for Type 2 diabetes. It is also sometimes prescribed off-label for weight management. Another Novo Nordisk drug that contains semaglutide, Wegovy, is prescribed primarily for weight management and earned an additional $635-million last year.
More than a million Canadians currently take semaglutide.
Canada became the first major market where generic forms of semaglutide became legal, as of Jan. 5. Health Canada has approved two such products: From India’s Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. RDY-N on April 28, and from Apotex on May 1. Both products are produced in India.
Over the last few weeks, distribution has started to ramp up. Apotex is the first that has become widely available in pharmacy ordering systems, although supply is so far limited. Dr. Reddy’s said it expects broad distribution of its drug in the coming days.
Both Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall said they have started to receive generic semaglutide at some of their locations.
The wholesale price of Apotex’s version is $78.14 for a four-week supply. That’s less than a third of the wholesale price of brand-name Ozempic, which is currently $240.48 for a four-week supply. Both prices are before pharmacy markups and fees. Final costs will differ by pharmacy and insurance coverage.
Felix began selling generic semaglutide last Friday at $149 per month. The company said nearly all its customers taking the drug for weight loss pay out of pocket and there was a spike in interest, with the first 24 hours of availability seeing 14 times as many orders as a typical day.
Generic prices in Canada are set out in an agreement between the industry and the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), a non-profit that represents public health plans. That agreement indicates generic semaglutide should cost 50 per cent of the brand-name price when two manufacturers are making the drug, and then drop to 35 per cent when three or more products are available, although manufacturers can offer lower prices if they want to.
Novo Nordisk announced that, starting this Friday, it would begin to offer discount cards on the Ozempic website for Canadians without public or private insurance coverage so they could pay generic prices.
“Our savings program enables patients and physicians to continue on Ozempic, the brand they are familiar with,” Iain Graham, general manager at Novo Nordisk Canada, said in a statement.
Patients whose Ozempic is covered by insurance may be prompted in the coming weeks to switch to a generic version or only have the generic price reimbursed.
Genevieve Gagnon, a spokesperson for the pCPA, said they expect public health plans to sign listing deals with generic manufacturers in June.
Spokespeople for major private insurers Manulife and Sun Life said provinces will have to officially rule on the interchangeability of generic semaglutide for brand-name Ozempic first, and then patients will begin to be switched over to generics or only have the generic price reimbursed.
Glenn Thibeault, executive director of government affairs, advocacy and policy at Diabetes Canada, said the lower cost is good news for patients in terms of access and affordability.
However, he cautioned that generics can have different side effects and his association doesn’t want to see anyone forced to switch if there is a medical reason to stay on the original formulation.
“If a doctor says, ‘No, my patient needs to stay on the brand,’ then we need to ensure that happens,” he said.
Four more generic drug manufacturers are listed in Health Canada’s database as awaiting approval for generic semaglutide. And a fifth is about to join them: Toronto-based Vimy Pharma, a new drug company started by two former Novo Nordisk Canada executives, said it has just filed an application to Health Canada to make generic semaglutide.
Dave Suchon, Vimy’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said their drug will be manufactured in Canada and he sees it as contributing to domestic pharmaceutical sovereignty.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article included a photo of boxes of the drug Mounjaro and incorrectly described them in a caption as semaglutide injection pens. The active ingredient in Mounjaro is tirzepatide, not semaglutide.