(Reuters) -The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Friday said its safety panel did not find a causal link between popular GLP-1 drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and thyroid cancer after a months-long review.
The panel committee reviewed non-clinical, clinical and post-marketing data of the drugs, and said that no updates to their prescribing information was required at the time.
The agency has since April been monitoring the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists, a class of diabetes and weight loss drugs that includes Ozempic and Wegovy, for any signs that they increase the risk of thyroid cancer.
The safety panel reviewed data from Novo’s popular diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, which contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide.
It also reviewed data from the Danish drugmaker’s other diabetes drug Victoza and obesity drug Saxenda, which contain liraglutide.
Novo’s U.S. rival Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Trulicity, or dulaglutide, and British rival AstraZeneca’s Bydureon, or exenatide, was also part of the review.
The panel said that manufacturers of these drugs should continue to monitor safety events closely and report any new data to the regulator.
In July, the regulator also began reviewing a group of GLP-1 drugs after Iceland’s health regulator flagged three cases of patients thinking about suicide or self-harm after using Novo’s medications.
GLP-1 receptor agonists, originally developed to help control blood sugar in patients with diabetes, also slow digestion and reduce hunger.
Mounjaro, a similar diabetes medicine from Eli Lilly, is also being used off-label as a weight loss medication.
(Reporting by Khushi Mandowara and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)
