eight loss drugs have dominated the headlines over the past year, and now there’s a new medication that may be the most effective one yet., to treat overweight and obesity. Made by Eli Lilly and Co., the drug is alreadyAbout 70% of Americans are overweight, with a body mass index between 27 and 30, or obese, with a BMI over 30—which increase the risk of a host of other health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and more.
The combination proved to be a potent one. In the first safety study of tirzepatide, which involved a small number of patients with type 2 diabetes, the team already saw considerable weight loss. So in 2016, when the larger study was completed and showed a dramatic weight loss of about 12% to 13% of body weight among patients, he says “I wasn’t surprised, because I remember thinking, ‘this is exactly what I predicted from the animal studies.
The market for such a drug is huge, of course, not just in the U.S. but across the world, where about half of the global population is expected to be overweight or obese in the next few decades. In a conversation with TIME weeks before the approval, Lilly’s CEO Dave Ricks said that treating obesity could also result in huge cost savings for the health care system, which is currently treating the expensive consequences of obesity—from heart disease and diabetes to kidney disease and joint issues.
Doses of Zepbound should be available in coming weeks at pharmacies, company executives said during a briefing after the approval. But access may still be a challenge for some. Zepbound will cost 20% less than its main competitor Wegovy for those with insurance coverage, but both drugs remain, and not all insurers cover obesity treatments. Lilly announced that those whose insurance plans do not cover anti-obesity treatments will be eligible for a 50% discount.
Ricks said that the company is developing next-generation incretins as well, and is in late stage trials with a weight loss drug that combines three of them. Lilly’s scientists are also developing an oral form of tirzepatide that would not require injections. “It’s quite likely that obesity, like other chronic conditions, is heterogenous, and different people have different causes of their obesity,” says Skovronsky.
Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)
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