> weight loss is a side effect of the Ozempic family of drugs. It was intended as a type 2 diabetes drug and it’s quite successful in that area.

You can’t call it a side effect simply because the drug was first studied for a different condition.

Weight loss is a primary effect of the drug and it’s the indication it was approved for after extensive research.

Many drugs are first discovered while looking for some other effect.

Viagra is a famous example.

As I said, marketeers are clever…. And physicians can prescribe for anything they’d like - pharma is restricted to approvals before advertising.

That's not quite right. The clinical indication for Wegovy (and Zepbound for that matter) is, "As an adjunct to a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity for chronic weight management in adult patients with an initial BMI of 30 kg/m2 or greater (obesity)". Obesity itself is the disease the drug is approved to treat.

Now, Wegovy has the same active ingredient as Ozempic (Semaglutide), ditto for Zepbound and Mounjaro (Tirzepatide), and the latter have been prescribed off label for weight loss in the past but it's not just a marketing gimmick. These are different drugs in the eyes of the FDA because they are prescribed for different things (obesity vs. type 2 diabetes).

Different indications and approval to market. Different names for, umm, clarity in the marketplace. Same generic if/when they’re released. I would think this would be way easier than biologics as it’s not that big.

As I said above, they ran it through some amount of clinical trials and got approval to mention it directly. Same drug matter, possibly the same formulations.