Insider
A doctor in Texas appears to be the driving force behind a web of thousands of prescriptions for semaglutide, the generic form of Ozempic, filled across the border in Canada every month, and then mailed to Americans.
David Davison, a Canadian-trained physician working in Texas, has been pinpointed in an investigation into thousands of cross-border semaglutide prescriptions filled in the course of just three months. Authorities believe Davison "has not practiced in Nova Scotia for many years," Insider has confirmed.
Davison's license to practice in Nova Scotia has been suspended while the college launches a "full investigation of this serious matter," Gus Grant, Registrar & CEO of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Nova Scotia, told Insider in an email. "Based on volume alone, the prescribing is not in keeping with the standards of the profession."
Investigators in two separate Canadian provinces — British Columbia, where the majority of the prescriptions were filled, and Nova Scotia, a province across the country — told Insider their investigation is still underway, but so far they're tightening up international sales of the Type 2 diabetes drug, often used off-label for weight loss, and they have suspended Davison's license to practice medicine in Nova Scotia.
According to Nova Scotia licensing records that are available online, there is only one David Davison licensed in Nova Scotia, a doctor who's been working in and around Odessa, Texas for more than forty years.
College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia
In biographies on several different medical provider websites, as well as in Texas Medical Board records, Davison is listed as having graduated from medical school at Dalhousie University, which is in Nova Scotia, in 1977. Texas state records show Davison has also held a US license to practice in that state since 1978.
Davison has worked at several different hospitals and clinics around west Texas, and appears to have once been the medical director at "Weigh of Life" clinic in Monahans, Texas, a shuttered clinic that promoted using the drug phentermine to lose weight. Davison did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
It's unclear exactly how many semaglutide prescriptions Davison wrote, but the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia identified two pharmacies in British Columbia with a high — and steadily increasing — volume of prescriptions written for semaglutide in recent months: 3,860 prescriptions in December, 5,800 in January, and 7,500 in February.
"The College of Pharmacists believes that the majority of these were written for patients in the United States," Grant said. "I cannot see how the volume of medications prescribed could possibly be supported by proper medical assessment and judgment."
The College of Pharmacists wouldn't confirm exactly how many of those thousands of prescriptions were written by Davison, but authorities told Insider in an email that they were "inspecting" whether certain pharmacies are "compliant" with standards for online sales.
Many drugs are cheaper in Canada than in the US, because the Canadian government negotiates drug prices for the national health care system. At the Canadian online pharmacy Polarbearmeds.com Ozempic is advertised for about $250 US per pen, whereas pharmacies in the US routinely charge upwards of $1,000 for patients without insurance.
This has led to a surge of American patients trying to get Ozempic over the border to use for off-label weight loss.
The issue has gotten so bad that last week, British Columbia minister of health Adrian Dix announced that the province would be tightening Ozempic regulations to prevent potential future shortages.
"The purpose of procuring the drug Ozempic for British Columbia is not to turn around and export it to Americans," Dix said in a press release.
Most of the Ozempic prescriptions for Americans don't require actually crossing the border, they're shipped "by mail," Dix explained.
According to province-wide pharmacy data, 15% of Ozempic prescriptions in January and February were sold to US residents. Normally, only about 0.4% of prescriptions in British Columbia are filled by Americans.
Do you know a doctor who is prescribing Ozempic in an unethical way? Have you used a Canadian pharmacy to get semaglutide? We want to hear from you. Contact Hilary Brueck at hbrueck@insider.com.
