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The Other Pandemic

COVID-19 Highlighted Risks And Costs Of Obesity. Pharma Is Getting Interested

 
• By Melanie Senior

When Novo Nordisk’s anti-obesity medicine Wegovy launched in June 2021, patients and physicians could not get enough. As COVID-19 underscored the risks of obesity, along came the most effective drug yet – on a par with surgery, in terms of weight loss achieved. Pharma’s interest in this disease has reawakened, and Wegovy may be just the first of a new generation of more powerful anti-obesity medicines.

Obesity Dugs Concept
• Source: Alamy

When Novo Nordisk AS launched anti-obesity drug Wegovy (semaglutide) in the US in June 2021, physicians and patients could not get enough. Supplies quickly ran out, even though the drug is not covered by government insurers Medicare or Medicaid. “This drug is at least twice as effective as anything we’ve seen before,” said Louis Aronne, professor of metabolic research at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Comprehensive Weight Control Center. “We are inundated with patients.”

Trials of Wegovy, a glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 agonist, showed a 15% average weight loss, in combination with diet and exercise, versus lifestyle change alone. Only bariatric surgery can achieve this...

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