12:07 PM EDT, 07/03/2024 (MT Newswires) -- (Updates with response from Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) in the eighth and ninth paragraphs.)

Patients prescribed with Novo Nordisk's ( NVO ) Ozempic or Wegovy had a higher risk of developing a potentially blinding eye condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, compared with patients who were not prescribed those drugs, a new study led by the Massachusetts Eye and Ear showed.

According to the study, people with diabetes who were prescribed with semaglutide, sold as Ozempic or Wegovy, and then filled the prescription were more than four times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION.

Meanwhile, those who are overweight or obese prescribed with the drug were more than seven times more likely to get the diagnosis, the study said.

For the study, researchers analyzed the records of more than 17,000 Mass Eye and Ear patients treated over the six years since Ozempic was released and divided the patients in those who were diagnosed with either diabetes or were overweight or obese. These were then compared with patients who were taking other diabetes or weight loss drugs.

However, Mass Eye and Ear noted several limitations to the study, including the majority of the population in the study being white and the number of NAION cases seen over the study's six-year period were relatively small.

The center also said that the researchers could not determine if the patients actually took the medication or if they started and then stopped taking the drug at some point and how it might have impacted their risk.

"Our findings should be viewed as being significant but tentative, as future studies are needed to examine these questions in a much larger and more diverse population," said Joseph Rizzo, the director of the Neuro-Ophthalmology Service at Mass Eye and Ear and the one who led the study.

This single-center, retrospective cohort study has a high risk of selection bias, lacks important confounders, has few participants, and has issues with accurate case identification and exposure timing, the company said in an email to MT Newswires.

"NAION is not an adverse drug reaction for the marketed formulations of semaglutide [Ozempic and Rybelsus for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for obesity] as per the approved labels," the company added.

Shares of Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) were down more than 3% in recent trading.

Price: 137.91, Change: -5.07, Percent Change: -3.55