Pointe du Hoc, France — Standing alone atop a concrete bunker dug into a 100-foot cliff overlooking the cold, choppy waters off Normandy’s coast, U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday explained why he came to the French countryside to deliver a forceful speech drawing a straight line from the past to the present.

“Where we stand was not sacred ground on June 5th, but that’s what it became on June the 6th,” he said, referring to the battle that Allied forces launched that day in 1944.

“The Rangers who scaled this cliff didn’t know they would change the world,” he said of the U.S. unit that played a pivotal role in the D-Day invasion that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany. “But they did. I’ve long said that history has shown that ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things when challenged. There’s no better example of that in the entire world than right here at Pointe du Hoc.”

Biden thus capped his French tour of American wartime nostalgia, which included a dramatic day of events at the battle’s main American cemetery, with this point: This tale of autocratic aggression can happen again.

In fact, he argued, it is happening again, in Ukraine.

That nation has spent the past two years, with substantial American military help, holding its ground against a fierce Russian assault. Biden has argued, repeatedly, that Russia will not stop at Ukraine’s borders, and he has urged NATO members to show a strong front.

As Biden spoke under a cloudless blue sky, he regularly met eyes with a man huddled in a wheelchair in the front row: 99-year-old John Wardell, one of the dwindling number of survivors of the Ranger battalion that scaled those rocky cliffs.

“As we gather here today, it’s not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery that day, June 6, 1944,” Biden said. “It’s to listen to the echo of their voices. To hear them. Because they are summoning us. They ask us, what will we do. They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs. They’re asking us to stay true to what America stands for.”

But the people Biden needs to convince are back in Washington, holding the American government’s purse strings in Congress. It took six months for U.S. lawmakers to approve a package of about $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine, and some Republicans have warned that this was the last American handout to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s two-year invasion.

Biden referenced that fact when he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier in the day in Paris, as he announced another $225 million in funding.

“You continue to fight in a way that is remarkable, just remarkable,” Biden told Zelenskyy. “And I’m not going to walk away from you. I apologize for the first weeks of not knowing what’s going [on] in terms of funding. Because we had trouble getting the bill, we had to pass, to have the money in. Some of our very conservative members who were holding it up. But we got it done, finally.”

‘You saved Europe’

A day earlier, Zelenskyy attended D-Day commemorations and had emotional meetings with U.S. veterans of that 1944 battle.

At one meeting, 99-year-old Melvin Hurwitz, speaking from his wheelchair, grabbed the Ukrainian leader’s right hand and pulled him down, into a bear hug.

“You’re the savior of the people,” Hurwitz said.

“No, no, no,” Zelenskyy replied. “You [are]. You saved Europe.”

A day later, Zelenskyy thanked Biden for American support.

“It’s very important that you stay with us,” he told Biden. “This bipartisan support with the Congress, it’s very important that in this unity, the United States of America, all American people, stay with Ukraine, like it was during World War II. How the United States helped to save human lives, to save Europe. And we count on your continuing support and standing with us shoulder to shoulder.”

But Europe, too, realizes it has a role to play here.

“There is definitely a common belief in Europe that we need to step up for our own defense and security,” said Leonie Allard, a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and a former French defense official. “But of course, European security and the future of the architecture in Europe cannot be without the U.S. So whatever steps are taken, I know that the U.S. is in the room and there is some form of coordination.”

Historians note that the diminishing number of World War II survivors means that the next American president will have even fewer ways to highlight the nation’s well-regarded role in establishing peace.

History professor Jeremi Suri said that for the undergraduates he teaches, World War II is “ancient, ancient history.”

“So it will mean we’re more distant and the heroism, the defense of democracy, the Greatest Generation stories we’ve told ourselves for so long, those will be less compelling. They already are becoming less compelling,” he said.

But, said Suri, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin — and who acknowledged that few conflicts pack the narrative punch of World War II — there are other stories to tell.

“We do have many legitimate, honest stories of heroism from the Cold War, those who defended dissidents, those who participated in civil rights marches, those who stood up for solidarity workers who were striking in Poland and elsewhere,” he said. “They’re not the stories that have the same heroic varnish, and they don’t have the same cinematography associated with them. But I do think they’re compelling, and I think presidents will start to evoke those as much as they do the D-Day,” he said.

“It’s a made-for-Hollywood moment,” Suri said.

That’s a fact that Biden, who walked onstage accompanied by a piece of music from a popular TV series about World War II, “Band of Brothers,” surely knows.

Just seconds after Biden completed his speech, he made a beeline to the front row. Wardell, with help from his caretaker on one side and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the other, struggled to his feet.

Atop that cliff that Wardell first scaled at the tender age of 18, he clasped hands with the president.

VOA’s Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is aiming to persuade leaders of the world’s seven richest economies on a plan that could potentially provide up to $50 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort by using interest from frozen Russian assets held in Western financial institutions.

The U.S. leader wants his G7 counterparts to endorse the plan at their upcoming summit in Apulia, Italy, set to kick off June 13. But before G7 partners can get on board, much of the scheme’s details must first be ironed out, a source familiar with Biden’s plan told VOA. If agreed upon, the loan could be disbursed as early as during the next few months.

Most of the approximately $280 billion Russian assets frozen by Western financial institutions following Moscow’s 2022 invasion are in Europe, the bulk of which are in Belgium, France and Germany.

In April, Biden signed legislation allowing Washington to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian assets that had been immobilized in U.S. financial institutions.

Resisting pressure from the U.S. and Ukraine to seize the assets directly, EU officials in May agreed on a more restrained plan of using only the interest generated by these assets, an estimated $3 billion a year or more.

But the Biden administration is pushing for a more aggressive scheme. In simple terms, a loan of up to $50 billion will be issued up front to Ukraine by Western allies, which will be paid back using the assets’ interest income in the years to come.

If not the G7, the U.S. — possibly with other allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and the EU — would issue the loan jointly and be entitled to a share of interest generated by the assets, the source said.

Details of the plan are unclear as intensive diplomacy continues to work out the legal and technical requirements. But G7 finance ministers broadly agreed to support the principles of the plan during their meeting in May.

The group’s discussions have focused on what can be done to unlock the value of Russians’ frozen assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, said U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo.

“They talked through a number of options that will allow us to make sure that Ukraine has access to the money you need to not only invest in the economy but to invest in defense,” Adeyemo told VOA. “And my expectation is that as we get to the leaders meeting, those leaders are going to endorse some of those options.”

The push is driven in part by the situation in the battlefield, where Moscow’s forces have made strategic advances north and north-east of Kharkiv, the second biggest city in Ukraine. Russia has also intensified attacks along the eastern front.

American taxpayers’ reluctance to fund the war is another driving factor. Although the U.S. Congress in April agreed on a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, Republican opposition had stalled its passage.

In his Friday meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on the sidelines of D-Day celebrations in France, Biden apologized to the Ukrainian president for “those weeks of not knowing what was going to pan — in terms of funding,” blaming “very conservative members who were holding it up.” He pledged to continue to support Zelenskyy’s war efforts.

But as other G7 countries face the same war funding fatigue among their constituents, Biden began working with allies and partners to make Russia pay instead of burdening taxpayers, in a way that maintains unity without crossing any country’s red lines, the source said.

While there is an overall agreement to give Ukraine as much as possible, as early as possible, there are challenging legal and regulatory implications of lending based upon the anticipated returns on frozen assets, said Kristine Berzina, managing director of Geostrategy North at the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“How do you lend against the anticipated profits of the assets, how does that fit into the existing sanctions regime, and how long will those assets truly be frozen?” she pointed out to VOA as the key issues at stake. “How can you guarantee that the sanctions which freeze these assets do not get changed by the Europeans before that 50 billion is provided?”

Moscow has threatened retaliation. In May, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that Russia will identify U.S. property, including securities, that could be used as compensation for losses sustained as a result of any seizure of frozen Russian assets in the U.S.

While some Western countries may be concerned by the threat, others are worried about the precedent of using frozen assets under international law.

Biden will seek to allay those fears when he meets with G7 leaders next week. He faces many challenges, including the European Parliament this weekend, where hundreds of millions of voters from 27 nations could help decide on the continent’s struggle between unity and nationalism, as well as determine the fate of European support for Ukraine.

VOA’s Oksana Bedratenko contributed to this report.
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Paul Hughes, a former hockey coach from Canada, arrived in Kharkiv in March 2022. In the two years since, he and other volunteers — some local, some foreign — have been helping Ukrainians internally displaced by the war survive. Anna Kosstutschenko has his story. Videographer: Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Cut off from the West, Russia is pitching its $2 trillion economy to giants like China and Saudi Arabia and longer-term prospects like Zimbabwe and Afghanistan at its premier investment forum in St. Petersburg, which was founded by the czars as a window to Europe.

The war in Ukraine has led to the biggest upheaval in Russia’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Western sanctions have forced a once-in-a-century revolution in Russia’s economic relations.

Since Peter the Great laid the foundations of the modern Russian state and made St. Petersburg the capital in the early 18th century, Russia’s rulers have looked to the West as a source of technology, investment and ideas.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, though, has forced President Vladimir Putin to pivot towards Asia and the rest of the non-Western world amid what the Kremlin says amounts to an economic blockade by the United States and its European allies.

Western sanctions have not torpedoed Russia’s economy, however, and Moscow has nurtured ties with China, major regional powers in the Middle East and across Africa and Latin America.

It is less clear, though, how much cash these countries are prepared to invest in Russia’s economy, and at what price. No blockbuster deals have been announced so far.

But Russian officials say it is just beginning — and that relations with the West are ruined for a generation.

Bolivian President Luis Arce, who will join Putin at the main session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, said he wanted to share the experience of Bolivia’s new economic model — with a big state — since 2006.

“We have our own economic model, which we have been implementing since 2006, and we want to share this experience,” Arce told Putin.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is attending, as are 45 other foreign officials including the Saudi energy minister, Oman’s minister of trade and commerce, and a senior Taliban official.

Russian trade with Zimbabwe is tiny though — just $168 million in 2023 versus Russian-European Union trade of $300 billion in the year before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Gone from the forum are the Western investors and investment bankers who once flocked to secure a slice of Russia’s vast mineral wealth and one of Europe’s biggest consumer markets. Reuters saw no major Western companies at the forum.

Largely gone too are the 1990s oligarchs who made fortunes wheeling and dealing in the chaos of a collapsing superpower.

In Putin’s Russia the main arbiter is the state, controlled by the former Cold War spies and technocrats in his entourage.

Chinese dragon

State-controlled banks such as Sberbank, VTB and VEB have massive stands, as do Russian regions and ministries along with resource giants such as Gazprom Neft and Novatek.

In a sign of the times, Alfa Bank’s stand was a vast Chinese inflated dragon adorned with Chinese characters and an assertion that Alfa was “the best bank for business with China.”

Chinese luxury car brand Hongqi featured armored vehicles. A delegation from the Taliban, still officially banned in Russia, toured the stands. The Taliban originally drew members from fighters who, with U.S. support, repelled Soviet forces in the 1980s.

The theme of the forum is the statement: “The foundation of a multipolar world is the formation of new points of growth.”

While Russia’s economy has shown resilience in the face of stringent Western sanctions, prices are rising as defense spending balloons.

In dollar terms, the economy is about the same size it was a decade ago, and Putin is locked into an economic war with the West, whose financial might is at least 25 times bigger than Russia’s on a nominal GDP basis.

From many foreign attendees there was praise for Russia. “This year’s event has grown in size… There are a lot of opportunities,” Nebeolisa Anako, an official from Nigeria, told Reuters.

“The West may be actually isolating themselves as they are a minority in the world, although a very important part of the world. It is always better to cooperate with other parts of the world.”

Other officials from Africa and the Middle East echoed those words.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman met Putin’s energy point man, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, at the forum.

Novak said “friendly countries” took the vast majority of its oil exports and that about 70% of it was paid for in national currencies.

“We already supply 95% of oil and petroleum products to friendly countries this year in four months,” Novak said.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian air force shot down all five missiles and 48 out of 53 drones over nine regions during Russia’s overnight attack, Ukrainian military said on Friday.

The Russian forces attacked Kyiv region with drones and Kh-101/Kh-555 missiles, causing a fire at one of the industrial facilities, according to the governor. Emergency services worked to put out the fire on Friday morning with no casualties reported.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Syniehubov said the drone attack knocked out windows in at least three residential buildings, damaging a store and a post office, among other local infrastructure.

Three drones were destroyed over Dnipropetrovsk region, the governor said. Kirovohrad governor said the attack caused no damage in his region after military reported shooting down one drone. Khmelnytskyi governor also reported no damage, saying the air force shot down 11 targets over his region.

Ukrainian military said seven drones were shot down over the southern Odesa region with three more downed in Kherson region and two more in Mykolaiv region.

The attack did not damage any energy infrastructure, Ukraine’s Deputy Energy Minister Mykola Kolisnyk said on national television.

Russia has increasingly targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure this spring in combined attacks which dealt damage to its generation capacity, causing power cuts across the country.
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While marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II, U.S. President Joe Biden says global challenges are still present and urged unity in resisting Russian aggression today. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Omaha Beach, Normandy.
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UNITED NATIONS — Three European powers have written to the U.N. Security Council detailing Iran’s violations of its 2015 nuclear deal, a step diplomats said Thursday aimed to pressure Tehran to resolve the issue diplomatically and to avoid reimposing U.N. sanctions. 

The British, French and German letter did not explicitly threaten to “snap back” U.N. sanctions, but it noted that Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the nuclear deal and provided that power, expires on October 18, 2025. 

In its own letter, Iran rejected the European stance, noting that then-U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran, arguing they were within their rights to expand their nuclear work. 

The effort by Britain, France and Germany, known informally as the E3, to ramp up pressure was also visible this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency, where they successfully pushed a resolution critical of Iran despite U.S. reservations. 

The E3 letter, dated June 3, referred to a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog last month that cited Iran’s nuclear advances violating the 2015 deal, including by expanding its stockpile and production rates of highly enriched uranium. 

That deal, struck with the E3, China, Russia and the United States, limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons. In return, the U.S., U.N. and European Union eased sanctions on Iran. 

Tensions with Iran have increased since the Iranian-backed Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7. Other Iranian proxies have attacked U.S., Israeli and other Western targets, and Tehran has accelerated its nuclear program while limiting the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s ability to monitor it. 

“Iran’s nuclear escalation has hollowed out the JCPOA, reducing its nonproliferation value,” said the E3 letter seen by Reuters, referring to the 2015 deal formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

“Iran’s decision to take remedial measures was in full accordance with its inherent right … in reaction to the United States’ unlawful unilateral withdrawal,” Iran’s U.N. ambassador said in a June 5 letter seen by Reuters. 

Western diplomats and other sources familiar with the E3 letter said its purpose was to try to raise pressure on Iran within the Security Council and to buy time for a diplomatic solution before next year’s expiration of their “snap back” power to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran. 

The aim is to “take stock of Iran’s nuclear advances, which have become unacceptable and are getting worse, and to increase pressure within the Security Council,” said a source familiar with the letter. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reports twice a year to the council – traditionally in June and December – on the implementation of the 2015 resolution. The Security Council is due to discuss his next report on June 24.
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Citizens of 27 European Union countries are choosing new representatives starting Thursday. The voting could shape the state of democracy within the EU and decide the bloc’s global role, especially in Ukraine. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.
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LONDON — Government officials would be acting unlawfully by implementing Britain’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in breach of an order from Europe’s human rights court, a civil servants’ trade union told London’s High Court on Thursday.

The FDA union is taking legal action against the government over guidance issued to civil servants on how to implement decisions to remove people to Rwanda. It says this would mean its members breaking international law.

The guidance tells officials to obey ministers if they decide to ignore temporary injunctions — known as interim measures — issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is based in Strasbourg.

The FDA’s lawyers say this unlawfully involves civil servants in “a clear violation of international law” in breach of their code of conduct.

“The Strasbourg court has made clear beyond any doubt that interim measures are not optional,” the union’s lawyer Tom Hickman said.

The first planned flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was blocked in 2022 after the ECHR issued a temporary injunction – a situation Britain’s new law to implement the Rwanda policy seeks to pre-empt by stating that it is for ministers to decide whether to abide by such an order.

Government lawyers argue that the guidance simply follows the new law and that civil servants following ministers’ decisions would be complying with domestic law.

Election is key

The legal challenge comes ahead of a July 4 national election in Britain, in which immigration will again be a major political issue as small boats bearing asylum seekers continue to make the perilous journey across the Channel from France.

Sending asylum seekers who have arrived in Britain without permission to Rwanda is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy, but legal and parliamentary obstacles have meant it has never got off the ground.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful because of the risk that Rwanda would return asylum seekers to their country of origin. Sunak in response signed a new treaty with the east African country and pushed new legislation through parliament to override the Supreme Court ruling.

But implementation of the policy hinges on Sunak’s Conservatives winning the election.

The first flight is due to leave on July 24 if they do. But the opposition Labour Party, leading by about 20 points in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the plan if elected.
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THE Hague, Netherlands — Polls opened in the Netherlands on Thursday to kick off four days of voting in European Union parliamentary elections across the 27 member states that are expected to deliver gains for the hard right.

Geert Wilders, of the far-right Party for Freedom, or PVV, was among the first senior politicians to cast his ballot. Having sent shockwaves around Europe six months ago by becoming the biggest party in the Dutch national parliament, he now wants to build on that popularity and set the tone for much of the bloc, with calls to claw powers back to national capitals and away from the EU so member states have more autonomy on issues such as migration.

Paradoxically, like many hard right parties across the bloc, he wants to get more powers in the European parliament, so he can weaken the EU institutions from within.

“You also need to have a strong presence in the European Parliament and make sure that, if necessary, we will be able to change the European guidelines in order to be in charge of our own immigration policy and asylum policy,” Wilders said after voting in The Hague.

That is why he was immediately calling for a broad alliance of hard right parties to break up the traditional coalition of Christian Democrats, Socialists, pro-business Liberals and Greens.

“Making a larger group in the European Parliament,” Wilders said, ”that gives us power to change all those European regulations in order to be more in charge of it ourselves — here in the national parliaments.”  

Wilders, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French opposition leader Marine Le Pen stand in stark contrast to much of the left and many center parties, which call for a more united European approach on anything from climate change measures to defense, arguing individual nations only have a weak voice on the global stage.

“It is important that the European Union is a good and strong partner,” said Gerard Kroon, a 66-year-old who works for the Hague municipality and voted in city hall for pro-Europe party Volt. “We have to get things done all together. Not only in Europe but in the Netherlands too.”

Since the last EU elections five years ago, populist, far-right and extremist parties now lead governments in three EU nations, are part of governing coalitions in several others, and appear to have surging public support across the continent.

The EU elections are the world’s second-biggest exercise in democracy behind the election in India, and the stakes are high.

Almost 400 million voters will be electing 720 members of the European Parliament from beyond the Arctic circle to the edges of Africa and Asia. The results will have an impact on issues ranging from global climate policies and defense to migration and geopolitical relations with China and the United States.

There was some early voting in some countries, but the Netherlands is the only EU country to start its single-day vote so early, followed by Ireland and the Czech Republic on Friday and the rest of the EU nations over the weekend. Europe-wide results will be announced Sunday night after all member states have completed voting.

Since the last European elections in 2019, war has broken out on the fringe of the bloc following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country that desperately wants to join the EU.

A founding member, the Netherlands was long unwavering in its support of EU policies. Research from the Clingendael think tank, though, suggests dissatisfaction with the EU among Dutch people, and that while most believe that the Netherlands should remain in the bloc, many also believe it should be more self-sufficient.

While many voters are predicted to lurch to the right, the Christian Democrat-dominated European People’s Party, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is currently the EU legislature’s biggest bloc and is bound to be the coalition kingmaker when the dust settles on the election results.

In the Netherlands, Wilders’ PVV could build on its domestic success and surge, possibly overtaking the combined Labor Party and Green Left. Labor topped the Dutch EU Parliament election in 2019 with 19% of the vote for six seats while the Greens took 11% and three seats. Wilders’ party at the time only managed 3.5% and no seats.

Wilders and one of his likely coalition partners, the Farmer Citizen Movement, are popular among farmers in the Netherlands who have staged regular protests to call for an easing of EU legislation they say is crippling their livelihoods.

Wilders has in the past called for the Netherlands to leave the EU as Britain did, but his party’s manifesto for the election starting Thursday makes no mention of a so-called Nexit. Instead, it urges voters to back the PVV so it can change the EU from within, similar to plans of many other hard right parties across the bloc.

The number of members elected in each country depends on the size of the population, ranging from six for Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus to 96 for Germany. In 2019, Europeans elected 751 lawmakers. Following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU in 2020, the number of MEPs fell to 705. Some of the 73 seats previously held by British MEPs were redistributed to other member states.

The lawmakers, known as Members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, can vote on a wide range of legislation covering banking rules, climate, agriculture, fisheries, security and justice. They also vote on the EU budget, which is crucial to the implementation of European policies, including, for instance, the aid delivered to Ukraine.

After the election, MEPs will elect their president at the first plenary session, from July 16-19. Then, most likely in September, they will nominate the president of the European Commission, following a proposal made by the member states. In 2019, von der Leyen narrowly won a vote to become the first woman to head the institution. She is seeking a second term. 
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SHANGHAI, China — Novo Nordisk is facing the prospect of intensifying competition in the promising Chinese market, where drugmakers are developing at least 15 generic versions of its diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, clinical trial records showed.

The Danish drugmaker has high hopes that demand for its blockbuster drugs will surge in China, which is estimated to have the world’s highest number of people who are overweight or obese.

Ozempic won approval from China in 2021, and Novo Nordisk saw sales of the drug in the greater China region double to $698 million last year. It is expecting Wegovy to be approved this year.

But the patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in China in 2026. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in the country over the patent.

An adverse court ruling could make it lose its semaglutide exclusivity even sooner and turn China into the first major market where Novo is stripped of patent protection for the drugs.

Those circumstances have drawn several Chinese drugmakers to the fray. At least 11 semaglutide drug candidates from Chinese firms are in the final stages of clinical trials, according to records in a clinical trial database reviewed by Reuters.

“Ozempic has witnessed unprecedented success in mainland China … and with patent expiry so close, Chinese drugmakers are looking to capitalize (on) this segment as soon as possible,” said Karan Verma, a health care research and data analyst at information services provider Clarivate.

Front-runner Hangzhou Jiuyuan Gene Engineering has already developed one treatment that it says has “similar clinical efficacy and safety” as Ozempic and applied for approval for sale in April. The company has not published efficacy data and did not respond to a request for information.

The company said in January that it expected approval in the second half of 2025, but it cautioned that it would not be able to commercialize the drug before Novo’s patent expires in 2026, unless a Chinese court makes a final ruling that the patent is invalid.

The Danish company’s semaglutide patent is expiring in China far ahead of its expiry in key markets such as Japan, Europe and the U.S. Analysts attribute variations in patent expiry timelines to term extensions Novo has won in specific regions.

Even more pressing for Novo is the China patent office’s 2022 ruling that the patent is invalid for reasons related to experimental data availability, which the company has challenged.

China’s top court said it was not able to say when verdicts are likely ready.

A Novo spokesperson said it “welcomes healthy competition” and was awaiting a court decision on its patent case. The spokesperson did not answer follow-up queries on the matter.

Other Chinese drugmakers who are running the final stages of clinical trials for Ozempic generics include United Laboratories, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Huadong Medicine and a subsidiary of Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group.

CSPC said in May it expected approval for its semaglutide diabetes drug in 2026.

Brokerage Jefferies estimated in an October report that semaglutide drugs from United Laboratories will be launched for diabetes in 2025 and obesity in 2027. United Laboratories did not respond to a request for comment.

Impact on prices

The number of adults who are overweight or obese in China is projected to reach 540 million and 150 million, respectively, in 2030, up 2.8 and 7.5 times from 2000 levels, according to a 2020 study by Chinese public health researchers.

If shown to be as safe and effective as Novo’s, Chinese drugmakers’ products will increase competition and bring down prices, analysts say.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in an August report that generics could lead to a price reduction of around 25% for semaglutide in China. The weekly Ozempic injection costs around $100 for each 3mL dose through China’s public hospital network, Clarivate’s Verma said.

Novo acknowledges the intensifying competition.

“In 2026 and 2027 we might see a few more players showing up due to the clinical trials” in progress, Maziar Mike Doustdar, a Novo executive vice president, told investors in March, referring to the China market.

But he also questioned the capability of some of the players to provide meaningful volumes, adding, “We will watch it as we get closer.”

Novo also faces competition from internationally well-known firms, including Eli Lilly, whose diabetes drug Mounjaro received approval from China in May. HSBC analysts expect China’s approval this year or in the first half of 2025 for Lilly’s weight loss drug with the same active ingredient.

Eli Lilly did not reply to a request for a comment on Chinese approval of the drug, which in the U.S. is called Zepbound.

Supplies of both Wegovy and Zepbound remain constrained, but the companies have been increasing production.

Zuo Ya-Jun, general manager of weight loss drugmaker Shanghai Benemae Pharmaceutical, said a product being competitive would depend on distinguishing features such as efficacy, durability of the treatment and a company’s sales abilities.

“It will be a market with fierce competition, but who will be [the leader] is hard to say,” she said.
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Turkey is supplying weapons to Ukraine as Kyiv works to resolve its ammunition shortage. A Turkish weapons manufacturer is teaming with the U.S. to open a munitions factory, while another Turkish firm is set to open a drone factory in Ukraine. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports.
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