The large appetite for GLP-1 drugs for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity in the US creates extra work and increased costs for shipping and handling of the drugs for the major US pharmaceutical wholesalers, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Therefore, the distribution of the drugs is not necessarily a source of greater bottom-line earnings for the wholesalers, which include Amerisourcebergen, Cardinal Health and Mckesson.

The challenge is that GLP-1 products such as Novo Nordisk’s diabetes 2 drug Ozempic and weight loss drug Wegovy must be stored at refrigerator temperature

For wholesalers, this means that they must provide industrial-scale refrigeration logistics to ensure that the medicines are kept cold during transportation and storage. And that eats away at wholesalers’ profit margins, the financial newspaper writes.

Specifically, Cardinal Health, for example, is planning to expand its cold storage facilities to prepare for future growth in sales of drugs that require storage at low temperatures, such as GLP-1.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Simon Øst Vejbæk)