‘Novo Nordisk Successfully Removes Unauthorized Listings of Wegovy from IndiaMART, Pfizer’s Shares Rise After FDA Approval\n\nNovo Nordisk, a leading Danish pharmaceutical company, has taken action against unauthorized listings of its popular weight-loss drug Wegovy on IndiaMART, an online marketplace in India. The company engaged in discussions with IndiaMART’s top executives to establish a collaborative “framework” to identify and remove counterfeit listings, in an effort to curb illegal sales. Novo Nordisk’s global spokesperson stated that the company regularly monitors suspicious or illicit online sales and works with platforms to prevent or address such unauthorized offers. The company did not provide details about its initiatives in India.\n\nThe drugmaker’s India Managing Director, Vikrant Shrotriya, previously expressed the challenges in tracing illegal sellers and the complexity involved in effectively addressing this issue. Moreover, IndiaMART’s inclusion on a U.S. Government agency’s Notorious Markets list for 2022 highlights the persistence of counterfeit goods on the platform as a significant concern.\n\nIn other news, Pfizer’s shares saw a 1.6% increase on Monday after the FDA approved the expanded use of Padcev, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) added from its recently closed acquisition of Seagen. The FDA approved Padcev in combination with Merck’s Keytruda for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer. This marks the first approval for a combination of an ADC product plus PD-L1 inhibitor for the treatment of advanced bladder cancer, offering an alternative to platinum-containing chemotherapy, the current standard of care.\n\nThe approval was based on data from the phase III EV-302 study, which showed that Padcev plus Keytruda nearly doubled the median overall survival and median progression-free survival in patients with advanced bladder cancer compared to platinum-containing chemotherapy. Pfizer believes this demonstrates the potential of Padcev plus Keytruda for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer.’