Copyright STAT
If you ask a random person on the street what they call weight loss drugs, odds are, they are going to say Ozempic. It is one of the most well-known brands in medicine right now. But there’s just one problem — Ozempic is approved for type 2 diabetes, not obesity. Novo Nordisk, Ozempic’s manufacturer, does sell a version of the same drug for weight loss under the name Wegovy. But in popular culture and households across the country, Ozempic has become the brand that is synonymous with weight loss drugs as a whole. “I’ve seen people talk about ‘Ozemp-ifying’ their diet … I’ve seen news articles that talk about ‘Ozemp-ifying your way of life.’” said Robin Feldman, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco. “All of these things should make a trademark lawyer shudder.” Sometimes when a brand name becomes the generic term for a category of products — Band-Aid for adhesive bandages or Rollerblade for in-line skates — trademark lawyers push to aggressively protect companies brand names or risk losing them forever. And there’s precedent for that in medicine — Bayer lost the trademark to “aspirin.” In this new episode of STATus Report, host Alex Hogan traverses Cambridge, Mass., on foot and on ‘blades, chats with Feldman, and learns the meaning of “genericide.”
