The United States Medicines Agency has authorized the marketing of Wegovy, an appetite suppressant drug that is said to cause weight loss of 15% on average and could even climb up to 30% in some cases.
- The drug uses semaglutide, an active substance used in the management of type 2 diabetes.
- It targets the areas of the brain regulating appetite and food intake and increases the feeling of satiety.
- The treatment is taken in the form of a weekly injection.
After Alzheimer’s, obesity. The United States Medicines Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, has just approved the marketing of a treatment promoting weight loss, seven years after the last one. This decision, made public on June 4 through a statement, comes almost at the same time as that authorizing a new drug against Alzheimer’s almost 20 years after the authorization of the last treatment. Called Wegovy and developed by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, this new appetite suppressant drug would cause weight loss of 15% on average which could climb up to 30% in some cases.
A weekly injection
This treatment bases its effectiveness on an active substance, semaglutide, which is already known to be used in the management of type 2 diabetes. It reduces blood sugar, body weight and fat mass. It turns out that semaglutide is also an incredible appetite suppressant whose results for weight loss would show rates that only bariatric surgery could achieve until now. An important discovery as the number of cases of obesity in the world has almost tripled since 1975, according to theWorld Health Organization.
This treatment is taken in the form of a weekly injection, the dose of which increases each week up to 2.4 mg. This helps reduce gastrointestinal side effects. It should be used in obese or overweight adults who have at least one weight-related pathology (arterial hypertension, diabetes, etc.). Once in the body, Wegovy mimics the action of a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (or GLP-1), which targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite and food intake. It then acts as an appetite suppressant by increasing the feeling of satiety. In addition, this drug must be accompanied by a low-calorie diet and increased physical activity.
A high price
The marketing authorization was announced after clinical trials showed very encouraging results and very good safety of this drug. A study published on March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that this treatment enabled 200 obese participants, who had a BMI equal to or greater than 30, to achieve an average weight loss of 15%. A third of them even lost more than 20% of their initial weight. “No other drug has been able to produce this level of weight loss, this is truly a game changer“, had welcomed the time Rachel Batterham, obesity researcher at University College London and co-author of the study. Four separate double-blind trials, conducted over a 68-week period and approximately 4,500 patients, reported average weight losses ranging between 12.4% and 18%. While the majority of participants in the various studies responded well to the treatment, some stopped taking the drug due to side effects.
At this time, this treatment should not be available to everyone. The Danish laboratory has not yet communicated its price but has indicated that it could show levels similar to the drug Saxenda which costs 1,300 dollars per month.
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