Can you buy Ozempic in Belgium without a prescription?

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Can you buy Ozempic in Belgium without a prescription?
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Can you buy Ozempic in Belgium without a prescription?

The diabetes drug Ozempic has also made a name for itself in the past year as a weight-loss drug. Ozempic regulates blood sugar levels and has the side effect of suppressing your appetite, which causes you to lose weight. Weight loss can be as much as 25 kilos.

In addition to Ozempic, producer Novo Nordisk has also developed Wegovy, which contains a higher dose of the active ingredient semaglutide, which means you will lose even more weight. Wegovy will probably be on the Belgian market next year, but in the meantime many people are wondering: can you buy Ozempic without a prescription?

Also read: After Ozempic: diabetes drug Mounjaro gives even more weight loss

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Buy Ozempic online?

“In Belgium, you can only pick up Ozempic with a prescription and from a recognized pharmacy,” says Ann Eeckhout of the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP). “Online, you can only reserve it. In other countries, the medicine may be offered for sale on the internet, but it is prohibited to deliver to our country. You must comply with Belgian legislation.”

Although you can now order practically anything on internet sites worldwide, medicines are an exception. As a Belgian, you may only order from websites of Belgian-approved pharmacies. You can recognize these by the Belgian flag at the bottom of the site with a reference to the FAGG. Websites that do not sell products from Belgian-approved pharmacies are therefore in fact illegal. So-called 'online consultations' are also illegal for Belgian patients. There must be direct contact between a doctor and his patient.

Anyone who tries to buy Ozempic online without a prescription will probably get a message that the drug is out of stock. The alternative 'Saxenda' may also be offered. Saxenda is also a product of Novo Nordisk, but with a different active ingredient: it contains liraglutide instead of semaglutide.

Also read: Anti-obesity drug Saxenda: limited effect and risk of side effects

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New slimming product Wegovy

Wegovy contains even more semaglutide than Ozempic. While Ozempic is actually a diabetes drug, Wegovy is specifically intended for the treatment of obesity. If you inject Wegovy weekly, it can lead to an average weight loss of 15 to 17 percent.

Wegovy has been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), but is currently only sold in the United States, the United Kingdom and now also in Denmark, Norway and Germany.

It is not yet clear when the medicine will be available in our country. “Belgium is a difficult market: we are a small country, and leaflets and so on have to be produced in three national languages,” says Ann Eeckhout of the FAGG. “Moreover, the procedures at the FPS Economy and the RIZIV take quite a long time.”

Also read: Wegovy: even better than Ozempic for losing weight?

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Last updated: October 2023