The trial was sponsored by Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy. Semaglutide was originally developed by the company as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. (Although it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegobee for weight management, Ozempic is also prescribed off-label for weight loss.)
People with type 2 diabetes either don’t produce enough insulin or are insulin resistant. Semaglutide mimics her GLP-1 hormone, which is produced in the gut and regulates blood sugar by stimulating the body’s production of insulin. This hormone also interacts with the brain to regulate appetite, and this version of the drug leads to weight loss by signaling satiety, making people eat less.
Novo Nordisk is studying how the drug may reduce heart failure in obese patients, as well as whether it has more general cardiovascular effects. The company announced last month that it will continue its weekly injections of semaglutide for five years. 20% reduction in stroke and heart attack risk in over 17,000 people with a history of obesity and cardiovascular disease. The company hasn’t released detailed results from the trial yet, but expects to do so at a conference later this year.
“It’s really exciting,” says Martha Gulati, director of preventive cardiology at the Sumit Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Overweight or obesity also increases the risk of stroke and heart attack, so she hopes patients lose weight to reduce these events.
But Gulati said, “The drastic reduction in cardiovascular events indicates something else is going on.” Semaglutide, for example, may have anti-inflammatory properties, she says. “I don’t think we fully understand how this drug works at this point,” she says.
There is also early evidence that Ozempic and Wegobee may curb cravings for alcohol. In an independent study published in June by Swedish researchers, alcoholic rats given the drug: Reduced alcohol consumption by 50%.
Nathan Wong, director of the Heart Disease Prevention Program at the University of California, Irvine, said the heart failure results are encouraging when combined with Novo’s recent announcements. “This broadens the potential utility of this drug,” he says.
The latest findings are based on Study results to be published in 2021The study found that for overweight or obese people, the drug reduced weight by an average of 14.9 percent, leading to reductions in certain cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood pressure and levels of lipids or fatty compounds in the blood. Ta.
Based on the 2021 paper, Wong and colleagues used statistical modeling to estimate the number of Americans who would benefit from semaglutide. his study, published in augustestimated that if all 93 million overweight and obese American adults were prescribed this drug, it would reduce 43 million obese people and up to 1.5 million heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses over 10 years. concluded that the adverse cardiovascular effects of event.
Statins are now the most widely used drugs to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. They work by lowering LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, and have been shown to: reduce cardiovascular risk. Semaglutide may offer additional benefits to people already taking statins.
With broader heart benefits, more people may want to use Ozempic and Wegovy. But for that to happen, Wong said, drugs need to become more available. without insurance, Ozempic’s list price is $935 and Wegovy’s is $1,350 For monthly prescriptions in the US. (The version for cardiovascular disease may have a different price tag and brand name.) Even with insurance, some people may not be able to pay the copay, and demand Currently, the supply of this drug is limited due to the high
Novo Nordisk plans to seek regulatory approval in the US and Europe for further use of semaglutide. Once a drug is already on the market, the approval process for additional indications is usually faster because the drug has already been proven safe. If it’s granted, this blockbuster drug could become a sequel.
