Something Comically Bad Just Happened to the Inventor of Ozempic
Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharma company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, made one very dumb decision a few years ago that will massively eat into its profits — and honestly, all we can do is laugh. When watching an interview with the head of generic drugmaker Sandoz, Science magazine columnist Derek Lowe learned something incredible: that Novo failed to renew its Canadian patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in the uber-expensive drugs Ozempic and Wegovy. Speaking to the biopharma industry outlet Endpoints News earlier this month, Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor dropped the information as an aside in a larger conversation about the company's […]
Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, made one very dumb decision a few years ago that's now poised to massively eat into its profits — a wild twist in the pharma company's saga, and an all-time cautionary tale for its peers.
When watching an interview with the head of generic drugmaker Sandoz, Science magazine columnist Derek Lowe learned something incredible: that Novo failed to renew its Canadian patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in the uber-expensive drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
Speaking to the biopharma industry outlet Endpoints News earlier this month, Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor dropped the information as an aside in a larger conversation about the company's plans to sell generic semaglutide in Canada in 2026 — the same year that Novo's patent expires there due to the filing oversight.
"Canada, we filed and are waiting for approval once the data exclusivity expires sometime in Q1 next year," Saynor told Endpoints. "Interesting market. Novo never filed a patent in Canada."
Saynor, to be clear, was not quite correct in saying Novo never filed for a semaglutide patent in Canada — but the truth of the matter is actually way funnier.
Lowe learned, via trawling through Canadian patent records, that Novo last filed to renew its semaglutide patent in the great white north back in the year 2018. When the regulatory body that governs patents reminded the Danish manufacturer that it was time to pay the annual maintenance fee, a paltry $250, Novo hemmed and hawed about whether it wanted to pay for so long that it quite literally lapsed.
Incredibly the Canadian patent office even gave the company a year-long grace period to make up for it, but the company never took the authorities up on the offer.
"Once a patent has lapsed," the Canadian patent officials reminded Novo Nordisk in a letter viewed by Lowe, "it cannot be revived."
As the Sandoz CEO remarked in his Endpoints interview, there's little doubt that "someone's lost their job" over the patent problem in Canada. Indeed, Saynor described that country as Novo's second-largest semaglutide market, and Ozempic sales in Canada garnered the pharma giant $2.5 billion CAD last year.
"You gotta ask why. I don’t think Canadians are disproportionately large," Saynor said. "There’s clearly a dynamic, like insulin, with cross-border business. It’s going to be interesting to see how that evolves."
Novo has, notably, kept up with its patent fees in the US, and generic semaglutide won't hit American shelves until at least 2032 — but as Saynor alluded to, they might be able to drive up to Canada to get it next year.
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