Yes, the patent won't be valid for Canada, but you can't import a product into the US which would infringe on a US patent.
So, though there may be a small amount that would slip through the cracks, it isn't as if anyone in the US can now manufacture Semaglutide and distribute it.
Canada is such a small market, that many companies don't bother. Though, for the cost, it seems ridiculous a company as big as Novo didn't pay the $500...that may even have been in Canadian dollars. :)
Ozempic did about US$2bn of revenue in 2024 in Canada.
Canadian pharmacies can legally sell it and Americans (and all other foreigners for that matter) traveling there can legally buy it.
Unlike the criminal law, Novo nordisk would have to go after every single person individually and make the case that they are infringing the American patent. This is all without the help of the police or customs, as a private civil matter.
Obviously this would be uneconomic for Novo Nordisk. You can't search anyone as you don't have any warrants, as it's not a crime and then even if you could, you need to prove that the drugs they have on them were purchased in Canada.
Foreigners who currently pay a huge amount of money would only have to make one trip to Canada in however long period it takes for the drugs to expire. I know I would certainly make a day trip if I was using this drug.
Intellectual property law firms offer services to renew and watch registrations like this worldwide and it would have been very simple to have a contract with one of them.
Well, about that... Aren't all variants of medications like these prescription-only? And in Canada you can't fill a foreign prescription without having a local doctor sign off on it, as far as I know.
This is how medical tourism typically works.
I don't think that's quite right. One of the things that CBP does is inspect incoming shipments, and confiscate IP-infringing things.
Think about the recent Apple Watch SpO2 sensor patent shenanigans: The threat was to have CBP confiscate any infringing devices at the port of entry. I also remember that multimeters infringing on Fluke's ~~design patent~~ trademark have been blocked at the port of entry:
https://hackaday.com/2014/03/19/multimeters-without-a-countr...
US consumers would have to travel to Canada for injections which isn't practical unless you live on a border town.
It's unlikely to meet the bar for personal importation as you say.
That probably won't stop people from trying. There's already a huge market for illegal compounds and GPL-1 drugs are available alongside the usual testosterone and other steroids.
> There's already a huge market for illegal compounds and GPL-1 drugs are available alongside the usual testosterone and other steroids.
The peptide and oils markets are both big, but largely separate -- the peptides folks don't seem to want to be associated with oils. Within peptides, GLP1s definitely dominate, though the other options are pretty popular. In my experience it seems like GLP1s are kind of a "gateway peptide" -- a lot of folks start with a GLP1 on the gray market, and then start to branch out and try the other options available.
As a Canadian national in the US I wouldn't even attempt doing this in the current political climate.
[0] https://www.fda.gov/industry/import-basics/personal-importat...
Also, let's be real, anyone in the northeast could be there in a few hours driving. New York City is about 7 hours away from Ottawa, for example.
> You can even find a letter where their lawyers send a refund request for the 2017 maintenance fee ($250) because Novo apparently wanted some more time to see if they wanted to pay it.
> On the same date in 2019, the office sent a letter saying that “The fee payable to maintain the rights accorded by the above patent was not received by the prescribed due date. . .”
> By that time it was $450 with the late fee added, but that was apparently too much for Novo. They had a one year grace period to make it up, and apparently never did, so their patent lapsed in Canada. And as the Canadian authorities remind them, “Once a patent has lapsed it cannot be revived”.
Impressive failure for "the second-largest semaglutide market in the world."
One's got to find ways to feel like the good guy when working for Big Pharma . That's probably not what happened but it's nice imagining it.
Pharma companies are really nothing more than holders of time-limited, expensive, exclusive IP. The number one priority should be to maintain those protections as long as possible. How could any patent be allowed to lapse, even if there was limited commercial value, let alone, a blockbuster drug making billions?
The cartharsis comes in knowing that them firing the innocent just keeps them repeating the mistake.
That's exactly how things like this happen. No one has responsibility, thinking it's someone else's problem, so no one bothers to do the needful.
Or it’s in someone’s political interest to let the fuckup play out.
A failure like this isn't just one dude forgetting, its a system failure where policies and checks failed. If it is solely up to one person that is a failure in and of itself.
I was surprised Science didn't discuss this option. However, reader comments in Science do comment on this possibility.
The idea is that letting the patent lapse would avoid getting regulated by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board.
I know several people working at NN, and it's quite chaotic and political, so I wouldn't rule out an internal oversight.
It doesn't take a very large company for this to happen. I've seen it in a sub 50 person company. There is a task to be done but no one can do it because everyone involved is waiting for someone else to do something. It's like a Mexican standoff.
I bet many Americans would travel to Canada to buy it there (despite the legality concerns). The medications lasts 2 years in a refrigerator.
But a smaller fraction.
If you’re paranoid, route it via the UAE. All my European and Indian shippers are doing that for tariff-free pricing. (Personal stuff. I’ll pay a customs duty if I get it, of course.)
(Honest question. I don't know.)
You probably have to disolve it in very clean water in a very clean container. Do you have to match the salinity and pH with the proprties of the blood? How much time must you stir it to ensure it's completely disolved? Do you have to add something to increase/reduce viscosity? Some alcohol in case there are a few bacterias or improve solubility? How long does the small homemade batch last in the fridge?
IIUC there is another version in pills, they may have a longer shelf life, or not. But ask a medical doctor before taking a ramdom medicine.
Realistically the cost of semiglutide in generic form means you could fly return every 90 days (personal import restriction for perscription meds) and still save $1000 every 3 months (3x$500 monthly - return flight - generic cost).
Multiple doses can be mixed and stored in the fridge for 4-6 weeks.
Why travel? There are thousands of ads on TV, radio, and the internet each day for Canadian pharmacies that promise to ship whatever you need to the U.S.
If anyone has worked in a big, hidebound corporation, they are familiar with the "That's not my job" quandary.
https://brevets-patents.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/patent/26...
And during most of that time, they were still protected by 'data exclusivity' which means that any generic producer could not get approved without doing their own clinical trials, until 8 years had passed.
So they gave up some period of exclusivity in return for being able to charge a higher price when they still had a monopoly.
I am not an expert.
Here's one about the price control on patented drugs: https://www.torys.com/our-latest-thinking/publications/2024/...
>Novo Nordisk did not file for a renewal because of a mistake, or someone going on vacation, or anything like that.
>Novo Nordisk decided that the additional years of patent protection were not worth it compared to the advantage of the drug no longer being under the jurisdiction of the PMPRB <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Revie...>. Whether that decision was financially correct in light of GLP-1's subsequent application to weight loss, I do not know. However, again, it was not a silly mistake on Novo Nordisk's part.
See, for example, Prilosec (Omeprazole) switching from prescription to OTC.
This year they already did an analysis to include Ozempic, but it was denied, probably because of the cost difference...
But they were trying on justice to extend the patent...
There’s one wrinkle though, legally importing prescription drugs from Canada isn’t really allowed in the US/UK AFAIK. HIMS is probably feverishly figuring out how to do that right now.
Shameless plug:
https://glp1guide.substack.com/p/another-glp1-generic-launch...
Also somewhat separately, injectable GLP1s are about to be upstaged by oral variants — orfoglipron for Eli Lilly and the Wegovy Pill for Novo.
I believe that this gets a new patent, and will probably be a huge seller.
Looking at the original interview on Endpoints, Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor says this about Brazil:
In Brazil, the biggest prescribers are dentists. Everyone says, “Why dentists?” They do aesthetic work, and then you have your Botox, and then you want a bikini body. It’s behaving like an OTC consumer brand. Imagine selling this, rather than $300, at $50. Anybody over the age of 40 in Brazil will probably want to be on that.
But he doesn't explain how they got around the patents. Another comment on HN says they expire in July 2026, but can anyone explain why the patents expire so soon in Brazil?
2. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
Many seniors get cheaper medicine from Canada. That might become harder https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/18/deminimis...
No paywall: https://archive.ph/nT0Jl
Oh well, at least we in Canada get more generic drug variants. Thanks!
Another comment here mentioned that patents in Canada come with strings on pricing. So it's possible there was an actual trade-off that was considered here.
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https://www.fda.gov/industry/import-basics/personal-importat...
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