As a consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospital who runs a publicly funded obesity clinic, Francis Finucane has long been frustrated by the limited and sometimes intermittent access to semaglutide — the blockbuster drug better known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy.
“At the moment, they’re only funded for patients with type 2 diabetes or patients with pre- diabetes and accompanying cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure or high cholesterol, which aren’t well controlled,” says Finucane.
“So three-quarters of the patients I see in clinical practice have to pay for these drugs themselves, even though, on average, they tend to have a lower level of social privilege than the general population.”
Over the past three years, Finucane has witnessed instances where patients have…