Canada’s health minister calls mass exports of Ozempic to U.S. an ‘outrageous’ abuse

VANCOUVER - Canada’s federal health minister says he’s working with provinces to prevent the mass exportation of essential medications after thousands of doses of the diabetes and weight-loss drug Ozempic were shipped from British Columbia to the United States. Jean-Yves Duclos says the level of “abuse” was “outrageous” after a Texas-based doctor with a licence to practise in Nova Scotia wrote 17,000 prescriptions for the drug that were filled by two pharmacies in B.C. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia says it suspended the doctor’s licence on an interim basis after learning of the prescriptions. Duclos says legal ways to prevent medications being exported in mass quantities in future will be explored through the Food and Drugs Act. Dix says assistant deputy health ministers from both the federal and provincial governments have met to discuss preserving Ozempic supplies for Canadians and will be looking for permanent solutions.