The reporter learned from the National Health Insurance Bureau that at present, semaglutide has been included in the medical insurance catalog as a drug for the treatment of diabetes, and it is suspected of violating the law to open and buy on behalf of the medical insurance fund and arbitrage the medical insurance fund.
What kind of drug is semaglutide?
Semaglutide was approved by the US FDA in December 2017 for "blood glucose control in adult patients with type 2 diabetes", and in 2020, it was further approved for "use in adult patients with type 2 diabetes with cardiovascular disease to reduce the risk of related diseases". After the above two indications were approved in mainland China in April 2021, semaglutide was included in the national medical insurance list through negotiation that year, and the price was less than one-tenth of that of the United States.
Relevant statistics show that from January to February 2024 alone, semaglutide will be reimbursed more than 700,000 times in the national medical insurance, and the dual factors of negotiation and medical insurance reimbursement have greatly reduced the drug burden of patients.
It is suspected of being illegal for diabetic patients to prescribe relevant drugs on their behalf
In recent years, semaglutide has also attracted the attention of many weight loss people, also known as the "miracle drug for weight loss", claiming that it can quickly lose weight. In response to the use of such drugs for weight loss, the National Health Insurance Administration emphasized that drugs used for "weight loss" are not covered by the basic medical insurance and cannot be reimbursed.
In 2020, the National Health Insurance Administration issued the "Interim Measures for the Administration of Drugs in Basic Medical Insurance", which clearly stipulates that 8 types of drugs cannot be reimbursed by medical insurance, mainly for enhancing sexual function, treating hair loss, weight loss, beauty, smoking cessation, alcohol cessation and other "improving living conditions" drugs are one of them.
If you ask a diabetic patient to open or arbitrage the medical insurance foundation on your behalf, you will be punished, and it may even be illegal. According to the relevant regulations and provisions, if the perpetrator defrauds the medical security fund for the purpose of illegal possession, he may be suspected of the crime of fraud. Even if it does not reach the level of crime, if you hand over your medical insurance card to others to use it in a false name, or use your own medical insurance to prescribe drugs and resell them, in addition to 2-5 times the fine, you may also be suspended from medical insurance network settlement for 3-12 months.
The "weight loss version" of Semaglu has not yet been approved in the mainland
There is a high risk of blind use
Semaglutide is listed as a weight loss drug in the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and other countries, and from foreign clinical data, it does have the effect of weight loss, but the "weight loss version" of semaglutide has not been approved in the mainland. Even if the weight loss version is approved for marketing in China, as a prescription drug, it should be evaluated by a professional weight loss center or hospital before injection, and the dosage should be reasonably adjusted under the guidance of a doctor, so as to achieve better benefits with fewer side effects.
According to the doctor, semaglutide in China for the treatment of obesity is still an off-label drug, and there is a greater risk in blind use:
- Semaglutide acts on the center, which can cause problems such as depression in addition to not wanting to eat;
- Semaglutide acts on the gastrointestinal tract, which will weaken the peristalsis of the gastrointestinal tract, or even not peristalsis, which may cause gastric paralysis, intestinal paralysis, intestinal obstruction and other problems;
- In addition, blind use of semaglutide may cause adverse reactions such as hypoglycemia and acute pancreatitis.
Unscrupulous merchants use semaglutide as a gimmick
Create a "weight loss artifact" for profit
Because it is a prescription drug with strict restrictions on its use, unscrupulous merchants have begun to exploit loopholes and produce various so-called semaglutide counterfeit drugs for profit. In November 2022 and January 2023, the Zhejiang Zhuji Market Supervision Bureau successively seized the use and sale of counterfeit drugs for "semaglutide" medical beauty slimming injections, and the amount involved in the upstream counterfeiting and selling dens exceeded 100 million yuan.
Ying Xiaoxiang, captain of the administrative law enforcement team of the Zhuji Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, introduced that the active ingredient of semaglutide prescription drug is a peptide compound, and the people involved in the case are producing peptide compounds after purification. However, the semaglutide content contained in its products is very low, and a shot of semaglutide can be divided into hundreds of copies, so its profit is very large.
It is not uncommon for drugs similar to those used to treat diabetes to be packaged as cosmetics and sold at high prices in the market as diet pills. Ying Xiaoxiang introduced that merchants packaged drugs containing semaglutide into cosmetics for sale, and injected customers, and would not inform consumers that the products they used contained semaglutide.
Experts once again remind that it must be used reasonably under the guidance of a doctor, and do not blindly buy and use it on your own.
▌Source of this article: CCTV News WeChat public account (ID: cctvnewscenter) Comprehensive Central Radio and Television Station, Voice of China, National Health Insurance Administration