New Canadian semaglutide contender eyes a slice of $3.5 billion Ozempic market
With about three million Canadian adults already taking GLP‑1 drugs and semaglutide sales reaching about $3.5bn in 2025, Vimy Pharma wants to capture part of that market with a generic version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy.
According to Health Canada, as reported by CBC News, the newly formed Canadian pharmaceutical company moved ahead after data protection on the drug expired in January.
Ozempic is approved in Canada for diabetes and to slow kidney decline, and is also widely used for weight loss.
Vimy Pharma, founded in 2024 and based in Toronto, is “betting everything on this one drug,” co-founder David Suchon told CBC News.
Suchon and fellow co-founder Farris Smith are former executives of Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind Ozempic.
Smith said “there has been a groundswell of interest and support from across the country to support local brands and local companies.”
Suchon told CBC News he sees market potential because “roughly one-third of the population lives with obesity.”
He said “there was an opportunity … to do more to provide them with medicine at an even lower price,” and noted that this class of drugs was recently deemed an essential medicine by the World Health Organization.
CBC News reported that Vimy Pharma expects to file its application for generic semaglutide with Health Canada in the coming weeks.
The company will face competition.
Eight other applications for semaglutide generics are under review by Health Canada.
“Health Canada cannot provide timelines for decisions, nor can we speculate on potential warnings or indications, while reviews are ongoing,” spokesperson André Gagnon wrote in an email to CBC News.
Under an earlier policy, submissions accepted into review before April 1, 2024, were not disclosed online with company names, and none of the filings currently listed with companies attached are owned or headquartered in Canada.
Competition from abroad is also emerging.
According to Reuters, Aspen Pharmacare’s CEO said the South African company’s unbranded version of Ozempic could be registered in Canada in the second or third quarter of this year.
Aspen hopes to be one of the first to provide generic competition for Ozempic in Canada, where Novo Nordisk’s patent for semaglutide for diabetes expired in January.
CBC News said that, if approved, Vimy’s product would be produced at a new critical medicines production centre in Edmonton run by the non-profit Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation (API). The organisation provides contract services to the life sciences sector.
The facility was announced in 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic.
API CEO Andrew MacIsaac told CBC News that “having a product that is so broadly recognized — especially by a Canadian company — as our first commercial project is really exciting.”
He said API imported specialized equipment from Italy in preparation for generic semaglutide and estimated about 30 direct jobs tied to the launch, with the chance to add more if capacity needs to increase.
The pandemic highlighted vulnerabilities in global pharmaceutical supply chains and that most drugs in Canada are made outside the country.
MacIsaac told CBC News that manufacturing more drugs “within Canada’s borders” keeps Canadians safe and healthy, saying “it’s always important to have resiliency, especially with medications, because if you don’t have them, it can kill people.”
Economist and pharmaceutical markets expert Aidan Hollis of the University of Calgary told CBC News that, while Canada has some manufacturing capability, more is better.
He warned, “We don’t know whether there’ll be more tariffs or what kind of obstacles we may face. Maybe there’ll be another pandemic, who knows?” and argued that advanced countries, including Canada, should have domestic capacity to produce pharmaceuticals.
CBC News, citing IQVIA Canada, reported that total 2025 semaglutide sales in Canada, including Ozempic and Wegovy, were approximately $3.5bn.
“It is a significant amount of money that’s flowing outside the country right now,” Hollis said.
Michael Law, a pharmaceutical policy expert at the University of Calgary, sees “a company like Vimy” potentially shifting the market “if [it] is able to ramp up production and become a maker-producer, sell across Canada and then even potentially export to other places,” while warning of “fierce competition” from other generic semaglutide makers.
He added that if a Canadian manufacturer produces drugs for the Canadian market, “we can be sure, or at least confident, that those drugs will be marketed and sold in Canada.”
Hollis said at the pharmacy counter, a Canadian-made generic may not change much for users. “I’ve never heard of a patient going into a pharmacy and saying they want the Canadian version,” he said. “Pharmacies are just going to stock whichever one is cheapest and most profitable for them.”
On the demand side, a Leger Healthcare survey reported by CTV News found that eight percent of respondents were taking a prescription GLP-1 medication.
Using 2025 adult population statistics, Leger extrapolated that this equals about three million Canadian adults.
CTV News said another six percent of respondents were interested in taking a GLP-1 but were not; Leger estimated that share as more than two million Canadian adults.
More than half of those taking GLP-1 drugs reported decreased appetite and 40 percent said they had fewer food cravings.
CTV News reported that about 30 percent of GLP-1 users said they go to restaurants or get takeout less often, and about one-third said they buy more fresh fruits and vegetables and more protein-rich foods.
Weight loss was the top reason respondents were taking or considering GLP-1 medications, followed by diabetes.
