Simegleride's "protection period" will continue until April 2027.

Recently, Novo Nordisk's global president and CEO Doug McMike made a clear statement for the first time: the regulatory data protection for semaglutide in China will continue until the second quarter of 2027, when generic drugs can legally enter the market. This period of "additional market exclusivity" lasting more than a year is not based on domestic Chinese regulations, but on the China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement. The market has not seen the expected "rush" of over 10 local pharmaceutical companies that have long submitted applications for generic drugs to go public. Zhao Heng, founder of medical strategic consulting company Latitude Health, pointed out in a media interview that the extension of the protection period for semaglutide will further intensify the competition among domestic generic drug companies, forcing the fastest progressing companies to start from the same starting line as other companies.