Aug 5 (Reuters) - Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk

said on Tuesday it has filed 14 new lawsuits in the

United States against the sale of unapproved versions of

semaglutide, the main ingredient in its popular weight-loss and

diabetes drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic.

The new lawsuits target pharmacies and telehealth companies

producing compounded versions of semaglutide "under the fake

guise of personalization", Novo said, without naming the

companies.

Shares of major telehealth firm Hims & Hers

extended losses to fall nearly 13% in afternoon trade. It had

earlier reported weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue.

A Reuters search of legal filings found some cases filed by

Novo in California dated Aug. 4 but none regarding San

Francisco-based Hims.

Hims was not immediately available for comment.

Compounders copy brand-name medicines that are in short

supply by combining, mixing or altering drug ingredients to meet

demand.

These companies were briefly allowed to produce hundreds of

thousands of compounded doses of Novo's obesity and diabetes

drugs when the Food and Drug Administration said they were in

short supply.

When the agency later banned the sale of these copies,

Hims and Hers shifted to creating versions of semaglutide in

personalized doses not accessible through the branded

manufacturers.

Novo's lawsuits allege that telehealth providers violate

state corporate practice of medicine laws by improperly

influencing doctors' decisions and steering patients toward

knockoff compounded "semaglutide" under the guise of

personalized medicine.

In reality, these are knockoffs that have not been

approved as safe and effective and are often made with illicit

foreign active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), Novo said.

It did not immediately respond to a Reuters query on

which companies were being named in the lawsuit.