A box of Novo Nordisk Ozempic medication in a pharmacy in London, Britain, March 8, 2024.
Holly Adams | Reuters
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There may be a new unintended side effect associated with it Novo NordiskPopular diabetes injection, Ozempic.
Danish health authorities said Monday they are asking the European Union's medicines regulator to review the results of two Danish studies linking Ozempic to an increased risk of a rare vision-threatening condition in patients with type 2 diabetes.
This condition is called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION. It is characterized by vision loss due to decreased blood flow to the front of the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain.
The disease usually occurs without any pain, and most often affects people aged 50 years and older. NAION affects between 2.3 and 10.3 patients per 100,000 people per year in the United States, according to some estimates.
The Danish Medicines Agency said it had been closely monitoring NAION as a possible adverse effect of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, for the past six months. The agency received 19 case reports in Denmark as of December 10.
But the total number of NAION cases in Denmark has risen since Ozempic was put on the Danish market in 2018, Jacob Grauslund, a professor of eye diseases at the University of Southern Denmark, or SDU, said in a statement Monday. Denmark used to see 60 to 70 cases a year, but now has up to 150, added Grauslund, who helped conduct one of the studies.
It's the latest potential concern about popular GLP-1s like Ozempic, which mimic gut hormones to regulate blood sugar and reduce appetite. Demand for this class of drugs has risen despite high prices and a handful of unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects, such as nausea and vomiting.
In a statement on Monday, Novo Nordisk said, after a “comprehensive evaluation of the studies” and an internal safety assessment, the Danish drugmaker “is of the opinion that the benefit-risk profile of semaglutide remains unchanged.” The company added that patient safety is a top priority.
The studies, independently conducted by researchers from SDU and other institutions, found that diabetics who used Ozempic were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with the condition than those who took another diabetes medication.
The first Danish study relied on data from more than 400,000 diabetics, a quarter of whom were treated with Ozempic and the rest with other diabetes medications. The second study included data from more than 44,000 Danish diabetic patients who received Ozempic between 2018 and 2024 and nearly 17,000 Norwegian patients who took the drug between 2018 and 2022.
The studies were published on medRxiv, a website that publishes studies before they are reviewed by outside scientists. Both appear to confirm the link that was first suggested in a Harvard study earlier this year.
However, the authors of the first SDU study said the absolute risk of the condition among semaglutide users is low. Assuming the risk remains constant over time, the results suggest that a diabetic patient who takes Ozempic for 20 years will have a 0.3% to 0.5% chance of developing NAION, they added.
“Although our findings do not rule out the possibility of an increased risk of NAION when semaglutide is used for obesity, the low number of events observed suggests that any potential risk is likely to be of limited absolute magnitude,” the authors of the first study said.
They added that additional, differently designed analyzes are needed to further investigate whether Wegovy users, who take the drug semaglutide to treat obesity, also have an increased risk of developing the condition.
For now, analysts are not concerned about NAION's risks and its ability to reduce Ozempic's prescriptions.
“Unless semaglutide is found to be unique among GLP-1s in harboring this risk, prescribing is unlikely to be affected,” Michael Nedeljovich, an analyst at TD Coin, said in a research note on Monday.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annikakim at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.
Latest healthcare technology: Nearly 80% of doctors who use telemedicine do so weekly, study finds
If doctors have their way, telehealth is here to stay. That's according to a new report from Doximity, which found that 83% of doctors want telemedicine to remain a “permanent part of their clinical practice.”
Doximity operates a digital platform for medical professionals that has been likened to LinkedIn for doctors. But users can do more than just communicate and read news on Doximity, as the company also offers telemedicine tools like voice and video calls.
Since the company has some stake in the game, Doximity published a report on Tuesday outlining the state of telemedicine in the United States and its role in healthcare delivery. It surveyed 1,171 physician telemedicine users and 131 nurse telemedicine users in August.
More than 77% of physicians surveyed said they use telehealth weekly, 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% do so daily.
“Physicians’ strong support for telemedicine underscores its growing role in modern health care, with the potential to change how care is delivered for years to come,” Doximiti said.
In addition, about two-thirds of doctors said telehealth “improved patient outcomes” in their practices, especially among neurologists, endocrinologists and rheumatologists. Doximity found that endocrinologists, urologists, gastroenterologists, rheumatologists, and neurologists were among the biggest adopters of the technology, respectively.
The most common use of telemedicine in clinical practice is for follow-up visits, with 84% of doctors saying they would use the technology to make those appointments. Next, 60% of doctors said they use telehealth to manage medications, 57% said they use it to discuss laboratory reports or test results with patients, and 52% said they use it to help patients manage chronic diseases.
Half of the doctors surveyed said telemedicine improved patients' adherence to treatment plans, compared to 37% last year.
Nearly a third of doctors said technology helped them serve more patients every day, and two-thirds said it helped them treat their patients better.
Read the full report from Doximity here.
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