United States: The main patent is expected to expire around 2032. Monthly Price: $950 - $1,350+ (cash price without insurance)
Norway: The main patent is expected to expire around 2031. Monthly Price: $109 - $301 (cash price equivalent in USD)
Novo lawyers messed up, didn't renew the patent filing over a payment dispute. Hilarity is ensuing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/09/hims-hers-generic-semaglutid...
And once generics for GLP-1s are going in Canada, Section 804 of the FD&C act becomes VERY interesting: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/reports/importation-program-un...
Reimports of generics from Canada into the US here. we. go.
>Novo Nordisk’s lawyers requested a refund for the paid 2017 maintenance fee of $250 Canadian dollars ($185) because the company wanted more time to see if it wanted to pay it, according to letters included in the documents.
>Two years later, the office sent a letter saying the fee, which now included a late charge bringing the total to CA$450, was not received by the prescribed due date.
>Novo Nordisk had a one-year grace period to pay, but never did, and so its patent lapsed in Canada. It lapsed in 2020 when the fee was not received, but it doesn’t expire until January.
Tirzepatide is the most potent GLP1
https://glp1.guide/content/semaglutide-vs-tirzepatide-clinic...
Before I started experiments on "my lab rat" with retatrutide, I found that combination of the about half max dose of semaglutide and 1/3 of Max dose of tirzepatide had the best combination of losing weight and lowering side effects. But another "lab rat" did not respond that well to this combo and we keep adjusting it.
Retatrutide so far looks the most compatible, but it is sample of 1.
That said, Reta is a triple agonist[0] and it seems to be quite amazing with good muscle retention as well -- it's unclear if this is just the people who are taking it being more likely to be gym goers. Up until now the only formulation I've seen that specifically targets preserving muscle is GLP1s in combination with bimagrumab[1].
[0]: https://glp1.guide/content/a-new-glp1-retatrutide/
[1]: https://glp1.guide/content/preserving-muscle-glp1s-with-bima...
A fancy way of saying: I *think* Semaglutide is best.
Unless you mean that Semaglutide worked best for you, right now the research points at Tirzepatide being most effective for weight loss (says nothing about t2d though).
While 2032 seems very far away now, its actually remarkably soon in the grand scheme of society.
My understanding is one of their defendable moats is the patent not on the compound itself, but on the injectors. Which is far longer.
They have also made a business of either stifling or “catch and kill”ing of the generics for their products. It’s cheaper to pay off a generic manufacturer to not compete with the new thing than it is to lose price elasticity of the n non-generic.
That is very typical in the drug/medical industry. To the point where it is sometimes (often? usually?) an intentional strategy.
There are dozens of autoinjector manufacturers, and generics can and do change manufacturers. It looks like semaglutide uses an off the shelf Yposomate pen, although Novo Nordisk uses different injectors depending on the country and indication.
Novo Nordisk also has an in house pen, but this would not prevent someone from competing, unless patients simply prefer that design to a generic one.
Eminent domain would still require fair compensation to the company, so you'd have to pay them more or less what they'd lose from not having the patent anymore.
(Though I think the term you might be looking for is 'compulsory licensing' or so? Not sure.)
The drug companies are presumably pricing optimally for profit (but not for maximum public benefit, for which the optimum price is ~0). You could calculate the net present value of the drug companies' total profits attributable to the patent, add on 10% as a bonus, and pay them off. If the welfare gains of having cheap drugs are genuinely greater than the value of the patent to the holder, this would be win/win.
