Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories suspended commercial production of its generic semaglutide after detecting an unknown impurity in the active pharmaceutical ingredient during a scale-up, the Indian drugmaker announced on 9 July. The halt, which will delay fresh supplies until late October or early November, sent the company’s shares down nearly 6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange—their steepest drop in more than four months. Torrent Pharmaceuticals, which sources the ingredient from Dr. Reddy’s, initiated a voluntary recall of select batches of its Semalix injection pens. The company said no affected lots reached patients and that existing products on the market pose no safety risk, but the disruption cuts its first-year sales target from 12 million pens to between 6 and 7 million.

The supply shock coincides with a comprehensive review published in The BMJ that provides a more measured assessment of the drugs’ broader benefits. Researchers pooled data from 262 randomised controlled trials involving 99,791 adults and found that while tirzepatide and CagriSema achieved the greatest weight loss—14.9% and 14.8% of body weight, respectively, after one year—most of the 19 drugs assessed did not produce clinically meaningful improvements in quality of life. Only injectable semaglutide showed a reduction in all-cause mortality and myocardial infarction, and tirzepatide lowered heart-failure risk. Higher efficacy was consistently associated with more gastrointestinal side effects, fatigue, and treatment discontinuation. The authors, based at Sichuan University, caution that evidence on kidney protection remains insufficient and that long-term outcomes beyond one year are poorly studied.

Separately, Novo Nordisk presented data at the European Congress on Obesity showing that a 7.2 mg dose of Wegovy helped a subset of ‘early responders’—those losing at least 15% of body weight in the first 24 weeks—shed an average of 27.7% after 72 weeks. Across all participants on the higher dose, mean weight loss was nearly 21%. The findings underscore the variability in individual response, a theme echoed by a University of Texas study documenting a surge in US poison-control calls related to semaglutide. Incidents rose from roughly 1,500 annually before 2021 to more than 8,000 in 2023, driven overwhelmingly by accidental dosing errors such as daily instead of weekly injections and skipping the gradual dose-escalation schedule.

Viewed from Beijing, the drug’s public-health footprint is set to widen: China added injectable semaglutide to its National Essential Medicines List, effective 1 September, obliging all public hospitals to stock the treatment for diabetes. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk launched a once-weekly basal insulin, Awiqli, in India, expanding options for a country with an estimated 101 million people living with diabetes. For Dr. Reddy’s, the immediate milestone is the completion of its root-cause investigation and process validation, which the company expects will allow commercial supplies to resume by early November.