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Novo NordiskThe company’s high-dose experimental weight-loss drug helped overweight or obese adults lose about 15 percent of their body weight, according to new reports Late Clinical Trial Results.
The Danish company presented the figures at a conference Diabetes Conference Sunday.Novo Nordisk told Reuters The company plans to submit an application for approval of the drug to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration later this year.
Novo Nordisk is struggling to maintain its dominance in the booming weight-loss drug market as new competitors include Eli Lilly and Pfizer Develop your own effective treatments.
Novo Nordisk’s drug is an oral version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the company’s top-selling weight-loss injections Ozempic and Wegovy. Semaglutide mimics a hormone called GLP-1 produced in the gut that signals to the brain when a person is full.
Novo Nordisk already has FDA-approved oral semaglutide, marketed under the brand name semaglutide rebelsus For the treatment of type 2 diabetes. But Rybelsus tops out at 14 milligrams, while the company’s experimental obesity drug comes in a much larger dose of 50 milligrams.
The phase 3 trial followed 667 obese and overweight adults without type 2 diabetes.
According to Novo Nordisk, patients who took the once-daily 50-mg pill for 68 weeks lost an average of 15.1 percent of their body weight when it was combined with diet and physical activity. In comparison, patients taking the placebo lost 2.4 percent of their body weight.
About 85 percent of patients taking the drug lost at least 5 percent of their body weight, compared with 26 percent of those taking a placebo.
The weight loss also resulted in “improved physical function, which led to an improved quality of life for the participants in their activities of daily living,” said Dr. Philip KnopeA professor of endocrinology at the University of Copenhagen, who was involved in the study, said in a statement.
New data suggest a high-dose pill may be as effective as Novo Nordisk’s once-weekly injection of Wegovy, which also led to about 15% weight loss 68 weeks later.
But the pill would be a more convenient way to treat obesity.
Knopp said making the pill available to the public would “allow people who are trying to lose weight with diet and physical activity alone to take this potent drug in a way that works best for them.”
Other companies are also developing oral weight-loss treatments to appeal to those who don’t want weekly injections.
Overweight or obese patients who took Lilly’s experimental drug forforglipron lost 14.7 percent of their body weight after 36 weeks, according to interim clinical trial results released Friday.
Pfizer is also developing its own weight-loss drug called danuglipron, which patients take twice a day.
But the pharmaceutical giant said on Monday it would stop development Another experimental oral drug, lotiglipron, was also used because of elevated liver enzymes in the patient.
After Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy came into the national spotlight in recent years, companies have begun to focus more on the weight-loss industry.
Social media influencers, Hollywood celebrities, and even billionaire tech moguls Elon Musk They reportedly used popular injections to lose weight.
The epidemic has sparked widespread drug shortages and an increase in cheap knock-offs.
Shortages and other factors, such as high out-of-pocket costs without insurance or unpleasant side effects, have forced some people to stop taking Ozempic or Wegovy.Many users have complain Rebound weight is difficult to control.
More than two in five adults are obese, according to the agency National Institutes of Health. About one in ten adults is severely obese.
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