Canadian company seeks to stand out with domestically-made generic Ozempic
CBC
A newly-formed Canadian pharmaceutical company is vying to break into the market with a generic version of one of the most well-known prescription drugs in the world: Ozempic.
“You could say we’re betting everything on this one drug,” said David Suchon, co-founder of Toronto-based Vimy Pharma.
The company’s endeavour highlights domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities at a time of geopolitical uncertainties and tariff turmoil.
The data protection on semaglutide, the active ingredient in weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, expired in January, according to Health Canada. That has opened the door for generics, which are cheaper than brand-name drugs, to enter the market.
With a surge in Canadian patriotism due to a tariff roller-coaster with the United States, Vimy Pharma, founded in 2024, is hoping to lean into patriotic sentiments by producing an economically-priced drug for Canadians on Canadian soil.
“I think there has been a groundswell of interest and support from across the country to support local brands and local companies,” said fellow Vimy Pharma co-founder Farris Smith, who along with Suchon, is a former executive of Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind Ozempic.
Ozempic is approved in Canada for diabetes and to slow kidney decline but is also widely used for weight loss.
Suchon said he believes there is market potential in Canada for a company like Vimy Pharma, pointing to how roughly one-third of the population lives with obesity.
“There was an opportunity … to do more to provide them with medicine at an even lower price,” he said, noting that the class of drugs was recently deemed an essential medicine by the World Health Organization.
Vimy Pharma expects to file its application for generic semaglutide to Health Canada in the coming weeks.
Eight other applications are under review by the federal department.
“Health Canada cannot provide timelines for decisions, nor can we speculate on potential warnings or indications, while reviews are ongoing,” spokesperson André Gagnon wrote in an email to CBC News.
Under a previous policy, submissions accepted into review by the department before April 1, 2024, were not disclosed online to include company names. Of the filings currently under review with companies attached, none are owned or headquartered in Canada.
If approved, the drug would be mass-produced at a new critical medicines production centre in Edmonton run by non-profit Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation (API), which works with and provides contract services to the life sciences sector.
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