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Sandoz hopes to be one of the first entrants in the Canadian market where Novo's patent for semaglutide for diabetes will expire in January. Sign up here. "It's unlikely people will launch in January next year, to be brutally honest. I think it'll probably be quarter one, quarter two," said Richard Saynor in an interview. Saynor said the market will serve as a testing ground for unbranded versions of the mega-blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic that contains the same active ingredient as weight-loss injection Wegovy. The firm also hopes to launch unbranded versions in Brazil and Turkey next after patents expire there. Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Maggie Fick;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Bhanvi is a London-based reporter covering European pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare industry. She previously covered U.S. health and pharma firms, with a focus on the new weight loss drugs that are transforming the obesity treatment space. Her coverage includes a trend piece on the underuse of their weight-loss drugs among men, increased interest in therapies being developed for preservation of lean mass, and a scoop on gene therapy maker Sarepta defying an FDA order to stop shipping its muscular dystrophy treatment. Maggie is a Britain-based reporter covering the European pharmaceuticals industry with a global perspective. In 2023, Maggie's coverage of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk and its race to increase production of its new weight-loss drug helped the Health & Pharma team win a Reuters Journalists of the Year award in the Beat Coverage of the Year category. Since November 2023, she has also been participating in Reuters coverage related to the Israel-Hamas war. Previously based in Nairobi and Cairo for Reuters and in Lagos for the Financial Times, Maggie got her start in journalism in 2010 as a freelancer for The Associated Press in South Sudan.
