Context: Semaglutide (glp-1 receptor) is the active ingredient found in Ozempic, a Novo Nordisk drug used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes that generated global sales of approximately $13.9 billion in 2023, with the U.S. accounting for roughly 66% of those sales (January 2024 Track Drugs Ozempic stats). A huge part of Ozempic’s success is related to Novo Nordisk’s patent filing activity: the company has managed to retain its corner of the type 2 diabetes treatment market by filing semaglutide patents in over two dozen jurisdictions. It has continued to pay renewal fees for many of those patents, including major markets like the U.S. and the EU. It was even granted an adjusted expiration date that extended one of its U.S. patents’ lives to December 2030.
What’s new: The Canadian patent office’s register shows that the last time that Novo Nordisk paid its annual maintenance fee was in 2018:
This is counterintuitive, given the fact that the country is home to the second-largest semaglutide market in the world (expected to grow at a rate of 22.9% between 2024 and 2030), and Ozempic is the largest revenue-generating product in that market (Grand View Research report). Now, that patent has expired due to failure to pay such maintenance fee.
Direct impact and wider ramifications: The patent at issue (Canadian Patent No. 2,601,784 (“Acylated glp-1 compounds”)), like in most other jurisdictions, was due to expire in 2026. There is no clear reason why Novo Nordisk hesitated over Canada and allowed a key patent for one of its most successful drugs in one of its most lucrative markets to lapse. But the decision has certainly opened doors for generics companies looking to enter the highly profitable semaglutide market – and we will likely see many of those companies also enter the EU, UK, and elsewhere, as their related patents expire there too.
A letter from 2017 shows counsel requested that the maintenance fee paid that year (US$250) be refunded (March 20, 2017 Government of Canada letter) “preferring instead to wait until the period of grace”. Two years later, the Canadian patent office stated that Novo Nordisk had yet to pay its fees and owed it over US$450.
Why Canada?
Commenting on a LinkedIn post highlighting Novo Nordisk’s actions, Dr. Chris Donegan suggested that it may be because Canada is an “unattractive market (like the U.K.) because it exercises price control on drugs.” (June 16, 2025 LinkedIn post).
As a result, he continued, Canada is deprioritised in launches. “Mistakes happen with huge portfolios in non-core markets, particularly,” he added.
Meanwhile, Cosmo Pharmaceutical Business IP Manager Lidija Petovar said that Novo Nordisk’s move is purely a “strategic decision and very common practice” in the pharmaceutical industry. Ms. Petovar notes that Canada has a mechanism that allows for abandoning patents to be profitable for patent holders too, making it a “win-win” for both the patentees and for territories that are home to good public health systems as they can also set competitive prices:
“If a drug is too expensive, the government won’t sponsor the same.”