McKenzie Prillaman in Nature:
It’s rare to find a product so successful that its makers stop advertising it. But that’s what happened to the weight-loss drug Wegovy in May. In the United States, where prescription drugs can be advertised, developer Novo Nordisk pulled its television adverts because it couldn’t keep up with demand. The injectable medication, called semaglutide, works by imitating a hormone that curbs appetite and was approved as an obesity treatment by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021. In a study, participants who took semaglutide for over a year lost more than twice as much body weight on average — almost 16% — as did people taking an older weight-loss drug that mimics the same hormone1.
Semaglutide’s approval for treatment of weight loss came four years after the drug was approved for type 2 diabetes under the trade name Ozempic, also made by Novo Nordisk, based in Bagsværd, Denmark. Demand for Ozempic has skyrocketed as physicians prescribe it for weight loss outside its approved use. Now, even more-potent medications for obesity are on the way. The drug tirzepatide, which is FDA-approved for type 2 diabetes under the name Mounjaro and made by Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, imitates two hunger-related hormones. And the company’s drug retatrutide, which mimics three hormones, showed promising results for weight loss in its mid-stage clinical trial, announced at a conference in June.
Neither of these newcomers has been approved for obesity. But treating the condition is more urgent than ever.
More here.