While a series of media reports shows that thieves are behind Ozepic in other parts of the world – including nightlife in Michigan and Santiago de Compostela, Spain – Brazil has become one of the main hot global points for criminals that covet drugs for extremely popular weight loss.
São Paulo, in particular, has become a pole because it is, for some measures, the richest city in Brazil, with many wealthy neighborhoods where several pharmacies stock the medicines because many people can pay them. And today, thieves have no problem finding buyers in WhatsApp and Facebook groups.
Focus on pharmacies has made employees fearful and led some stores to reduce their weight loss inventory. Thefts are “definitely a growing trend,” said Pedro Ivo Corrêa dos Santos, a delegate of the São Paulo State Criminal Investigation Department.
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Pharmacies are often easy targets, the delegate added. “Many work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, storing the product in a refrigerator without real security, only protected by the pharmacist,” he said.
An analysis of the New York Times of a São Paulo State Database found that pharmacies’ thefts in which medicines for weight loss Ozempic, Wegovy or Saxenda were stolen increased notably over the past three years, from a single recorded episode. In 2022 – four ozempic boxes taken from a single drugstore – for 18 thefts in 2023 and 39 last year. The numbers are almost certainly underestimated, as about half of the reported thefts did not specify the drugs taken.
Many independent pharmacies say they no longer keep medicines in the store.
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“Those who stake Ozepic can’t work in peace,” said Wilson Martins, the manager of “Farma The Emperor”, an independent pharmacy in the west of São Paulo. “People ask, ‘Do you have Ozempic?'” He added. “No, we don’t have. And so, we are not stolen. ”
The wave of weight loss drug theft occurs amid the dizzying increase in drug sales in a country where to reach a well -defined body is revered and, like many countries, is becoming more obese. The percentage of adults in the largest cities in Brazil considered obese increased to about 24% in 2023, compared to almost 12% in 2006, according to a study by the Ministry of Health.
In Brazil, Ozepic sales grew from $ 27.5 million in 2019 to $ 621.6 million by 2023, the last year for which complete data were available, according to IQVIA, a global data provider of health.
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