A patient walks into a clinic and asks not about diabetes control, but about weight loss drug. He has seen the results online, heard the name of the drug, and now, with prices falling, wants it. Doctors say such conversations are becoming increasingly common as Indian pharmaceutical companies begin rolling out generic versions of semaglutide, a drug used for type 2 diabetes and obesity, often described as the ‘magic drug’.
With the patent on semaglutide having expired in India, the cost dynamics of the drug are beginning to shift. Earlier, branded versions of semaglutide, primarily marketed by multinational companies, could cost anywhere between ₹8,000 and ₹12,000 per month depending on the dosage and formulation. With domestic pharmaceutical companies introducing generic versions, prices are expected to drop by 30–60% in the initial phase.
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For K.V.S. Hari Kumar, endocrinologist and secretary of the Endocrine Society of India, said the impact of the generic entry is likely to be more gradual than widely assumed. He noted that semaglutide was already being used by a significant number of patients despite its higher price. “It is not that it was accessible only to a very small population. The market itself was sizable,” he said.
