Ozempic faces review for potential eye disease risks

On March 8, 2024, a box of Ozempic produced by Novo Nordisk was displayed in a pharmacy in London, England.

Holly Adams | Reuters

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New and unexpected side effects may occur Novo NordiskThe blockbuster diabetes shot Ozempic.

Danish health authorities said on Monday they were asking the EU’s medicines regulator Review findings two danes Research Ozempic has been linked to an increased risk of a rare vision-threatening eye disease in people with type 2 diabetes.

This condition is called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION. It is characterized by vision loss due to reduced blood flow to the front of the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain.

This disease is usually painless and most commonly affects people aged 50 and older. According to some, NAION affects 2.3 to 10.3 patients per 100,000 people in the United States each year estimate.

The Danish Medicines Agency said it had been closely monitoring NAION over the past six months because of a possible adverse reaction to Ozempic’s active ingredient, semaglutide. As of December 10, the agency had received 19 reports of this situation in Denmark.

However, Jakob Grauslund, professor of eye diseases at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), said in the report that the total number of NAION cases in Denmark has increased since Ozempic was introduced to the Danish market in 2018. release on Monday. Glauslund, who helped conduct one of the studies, added that Denmark used to see about 60 to 70 cases per year, but now has reached 150.

This is the latest potential concern about popular GLP-1s like Ozempic, which mimic gut hormones to regulate blood sugar and suppress appetite. Despite their high price and some unpleasant side effects (the most common being nausea and vomiting), demand for this class of drugs has surged.

Novo Nordisk said in a statement on Monday that after “a thorough evaluation of the study” and an internal safety review, the Danish drugmaker “believes that the benefit-risk profile of semaglutide remains unchanged.” The company added that patient safety is a top priority.

The studies, conducted independently by SDU researchers and other institutions, each found that diabetic patients taking Ozempic were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease than those taking another diabetes drug.

The first Danish study was based on data from more than 400,000 people with diabetes, a quarter of whom were treated with Ozempic and the rest who received other diabetes medications. this second study Data involving more than 44,000 Danish patients with diabetes who took Ozempic between 2018 and 2024 and nearly 17,000 Norwegian patients who took the drug between 2018 and 2022.

The studies are published on the medRxiv website, which publishes findings before they are reviewed by outside scientists. Both appear to corroborate the link first proposed by Harvard University study earlier this year.

Still, the authors of the first SDU study said the absolute risk of the disease among semaglutide users was low. Assuming the risk remained constant over time, the results showed that diabetic patients taking Ozempic for 20 years would have a 0.3% to 0.5% chance of developing NAION, they added.

The authors of the first study said: “While our findings do not exclude the possibility of an increased risk of NAION when using semaglutide to treat obesity, the small number of events observed suggests that the absolute magnitude of any potential risk may be limited. .

They added that additional analyzes with different designs are needed to further investigate whether Wegovy users who take semaglutide to treat obesity also have an increased risk of obesity.

For now, analysts are less concerned about NAION’s risks and its potential to reduce prescriptions for Ozempic.

“Unless semaglutide is found to be the only GLP-1 drug to present this risk, prescribing is unlikely to be affected,” TD Cowen analyst Michael Nedelcovych said in a research note on Monday.

Please feel free to send Annika any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data: annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.

Latest Healthcare Technology: Doximity Report Finds Nearly 80% of Physicians Use Telemedicine Weekly

If doctors have their way, telemedicine is here to stay. That’s according to a new report from Doximity, which found that 83% of physicians want telemedicine to continue “becoming a permanent part of their clinical practice.”

Doximity operates a digital platform for medical professionals, similar to LinkedIn for doctors. But users can do more than surf the web and read news on Doximity, as the company also offers telemedicine tools such as voice calls and video calls.

Doximity released a report Tuesday outlining the state of telemedicine in the U.S. and its role in health care delivery, as the company has some stake in the game. In August, the company surveyed 1,171 physician telemedicine users and 131 nurse practitioner telemedicine users.

More than 77% of physicians surveyed said they use telemedicine on a weekly basis, and 35% said they have integrated the technology into their daily clinical practice. Nearly 90% of nurse practitioners said they use telemedicine weekly, and 52% use telemedicine daily.

“Physicians’ strong support for telemedicine highlights its increasingly important role in modern healthcare and has the potential to change the way care is delivered in the coming years,” Doximity said.

Additionally, about two-thirds of physicians said telemedicine has “improved patient outcomes” in their practices, particularly neurologists, endocrinologists, and rheumatologists. Doximity found that endocrinologists, urologists, gastroenterologists, rheumatologists, and neurologists were each the top adopters of the technology.

The most common use of telemedicine in clinical practice is for follow-up visits, as 84% of physicians said they would use the technology for these appointments. Next, 60% of doctors said they use telemedicine for medication management, 57% said they use it to discuss lab reports or test results with patients, and 52% said they use it to help patients manage chronic conditions.

Half of the doctors surveyed said telemedicine has improved patient compliance with treatment plans, up from 37% last year.

Nearly a third of doctors say the technology helps them serve more patients every day, and two-thirds say the technology helps them treat patients better.