Hundreds of doctors sent warnings for prescribing semaglutide on PBS to patients without diabetes
The Department of Health and Aged Care has identified the top 10% of doctors writing PBS scripts for patients without a history of type 2 diabetes.
Health officials have started a mass letter mail-out to doctors they suspect are using the PBS to prescribe subsidised semaglutide to patients without diabetes.
Without subsidies, Ozempic — the only PBS-subsidised brand of semaglutide — costs $150 for a prefilled pen.
But despite widespread off-label prescribing for weight loss, Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide brand Ozempic remains TGA and PBS listed for diabetes only.
PBS criteria limit subsidies for initial semaglutide scripts to patients for whom SGLT-2 inhibitors are inadequate or contraindicated and who are “inadequately responsive to at least one of metformin, a sulfonylurea [or] insulin”.
