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Reuters
6 days ago
- Health
- Reuters
Wegovy use among US teens up 50% as obesity crisis worsens
LOS ANGELES, June 3 (Reuters) - American teens are increasingly turning to the weight-loss drug Wegovy as more families and their doctors gain confidence in its use for young people with obesity, new data shared with Reuters shows. The average rate of teens beginning treatment with the highly effective Novo Nordisk ( opens new tab drug grew 50% last year to 14.8 prescriptions per 100,000 adolescents, according to an analysis by health data firm Truveta. That's up from a rate of 9.9 prescriptions per 100,000 in 2023, the first full year that Wegovy was available to children aged 12 and older. The average rate climbed further during the first three months of this year, reaching 17.3 new prescriptions per 100,000. That still represents a minute fraction of the estimated 23,000 out of every 100,000 teens in the country who are living with obesity, and is far slower than the uptake among U.S. adults. "It's promising that more young people are using these medications, but it's still a very small percentage of patients with severe obesity that are getting access to them," said Dr. Cate Varney, director of obesity medicine at the University of Virginia Health system. "When lifestyle changes alone are insufficient, we need these additional tools." For its analysis, Truveta reviewed the electronic health records of 1.3 million patients ages 12 through 17. The data covers 30 U.S. health systems with more than 900 hospitals and 20,000 clinics across the country. The analysis did not include other GLP-1 drugs, including Novo's Ozempic and Eli Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab Zepbound, which are not approved to treat obesity in adolescents, or compounded versions of these therapies. Wegovy became an option to treat adolescents in late 2022 after decades in which the conventional approaches of diet, exercise and counseling largely failed. About 8 million American teens, or 23% of people ages 12 to 19, have obesity, up from 5% in 1980, according to U.S. government data. Young people with obesity run a much higher risk of developing chronic, costly, life-shortening conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular and liver diseases. In January 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommended that doctors provide weight-loss drugs to children with obesity starting at age 12. Yet the medical community has not uniformly embraced GLP-1s for adolescents. Some doctors are hesitant because the drugs' long-term safety for children during a critical phase of development is unknown, and the treatments may need to be used indefinitely. Overall, there are limited options for many teens and their parents because insurance plans often do not cover any treatment for obesity, including intensive behavioral counseling, visits with a dietician or the new GLP-1 medications. At Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, the Healthy Weight and Wellness Clinic treated about 2,000 adolescent patients last year. About 25% were prescribed Wegovy or another GLP-1 medication, said Dr. Thao-Ly Phan, the clinic's medical director. The number of adolescents with a GLP-1 prescription nearly doubled from 2023. On average, their patients taking a GLP-1 drug lost 15 pounds (6.8 kg) within 6 to 12 months, and nearly 30 pounds after more than a year. For many of the other patients, the medications were not an option, either because of insurance hurdles or concern within families about potential risks. Other teens opted for lifestyle changes or older, cheaper weight-loss drugs, with some success. "It is important for us to continue to monitor and better understand outcomes from the medications – both positive and negative – before widespread use," Phan said. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized the idea of prescribing Ozempic or Wegovy widely to children to treat obesity. In a federal health report he released last month, GLP-1 drugs were cited as an example of the "overmedicalization of our kids." It noted a lack of "long-term safety data, raising the specter of unforeseen problems that interrupt, damage, or impair metabolism and growth development." Novo in a statement said semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, 'did not appear to affect growth or pubertal development' during its clinical trials involving teens. For many adults, Novo said, obesity starts in childhood or adolescence, and "we are confident in the proven safety and efficacy of our GLP-1 medicines." Eli Lilly's weight-loss drug Zepbound is in late-stage clinical trials for use by adolescents. Lilly told Reuters that "there has been no evidence to date suggesting impairment in growth or metabolism" from GLP-1 medications. Dr. Robert Siegel, a pediatrician and director of the Center for Better Health and Nutrition at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, said about 15% of adolescents being treated there were prescribed Wegovy or a similar GLP-1 medication from July 2021 to July 2023. They include patients being treated for type 2 diabetes for which the GLP-1 drugs were originally developed. Siegel said he prefers to start teens on three to six months of intensive lifestyle management before even considering medication. While obesity specialists can help navigate potential risks from the drugs, many primary-care providers need more training, he said. They may not have the equipment to monitor for the loss of muscle mass - a side effect of these medicines - or lack the resources to work with families over an extended period on healthier eating and exercise. "These medications are likely to be needed for a very long time to maintain weight," Siegel said, "and we only have a relatively short-term experience with them."
Reuters
01-05-2025
- Health
- Reuters
Exclusive: WHO set to back use of weight-loss drugs for adults globally, raises cost issue
LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization plans to officially back the use of weight-loss drugs to treat obesity in adults for the first time, a memo reviewed by Reuters on Thursday shows, marking a shift in its approach to treating the global health problem. The UN agency also called for strategies to improve access to the treatment in low- and middle-income countries. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. More than a billion people now have obesity worldwide, according to the WHO, and around 70% of them live in low and middle-income countries, the World Bank estimates. The wildly popular obesity drugs - Wegovy developed by Novo Nordisk ( opens new tab and Zepbound by Eli Lilly (LLY.N), opens new tab - are known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which mimic the activity of a hormone that slows digestion and helps people feel full for longer. In clinical trials, people lost 15% to 20% of their body weight, depending on the drug. The drugs have been launched in the United States and other high-income countries like Germany and Britain. But they can cost over $1,000 a month, and studies suggest people may have to take the drugs for the rest of their lives to keep the weight off. The WHO, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk were not immediately available for comment. The WHO's conditional recommendation will be officially released in August, as part of new guidelines on treating obesity. It is also working on separate guidelines for children and adolescents. Separately, WHO experts will also meet next week to decide whether to include the GLP-1 drugs in the agency's essential medicines list - both to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes. The WHO's essential medicines list is a catalogue of the drugs that should be available in all functioning health systems, and it can help make drugs more widely available in poorer countries, as experts say happened in 2002 when HIV drugs were included. In 2023, the experts decided against adding obesity drugs to the list, with WHO saying more evidence was needed on their long-term clinical benefit. However, in the new memo recommending their use as a treatment, the agency says it supports including them on the list this time round. Still, the WHO also raises concerns over the cost of the drugs and calls for longer-term studies on cost-effectiveness "across all settings, including LMICs" (low- and middle-income countries). "The same mechanisms that are used in large-scale medicine access programmes may need to be adopted," to improve access, the WHO adds, such as tiered pricing or pooled procurement. But it also notes that the active ingredient in one of the newer drugs, semaglutide - used in Novo's Wegovy - comes off patent in some markets next year. Several companies are planning to launch cheaper generic versions of the drugs then. Liraglutide, the active ingredient in the older generation of drugs, is already available as a lower-cost generic drug, with products approved in the U.S. and Europe, the memo adds.
Reuters
28-04-2025
- Health
- Reuters
Novo Nordisk's obesity drug Wegovy debuts in Thailand
BANGKOK, April 28 (Reuters) - Novo Nordisk ( opens new tab has launched its hugely popular weight-loss drug Wegovy in Thailand, an executive of the Danish drugmaker's local subsidiary said on Monday, marking the injectable drug's first entry into the Southeast Asian market. First launched in 2021, Wegovy helped make Novo Nordisk Europe's most valuable listed company until recently, worth $615 billion at its peak. here. Wegovy is available in more than a dozen countries including the United States, Japan and China, with Thailand becoming its latest market. "We actually received the Thai FDA approval already in 2023," said Enrico Canal Bruland, vice president and general manager of Novo's Thai subsidiary. He noted that Novo was making Wegovy available in Thailand ahead of rival Eli Lilly 's (LLY.N), opens new tab Zepbound weight loss drug. Bruland declined to provide details on Wegovy's pricing in Thailand, which has a population of around 66 million, or Novo Nordisk's plans for expansion into other Southeast Asian markets. Wegovy is currently available for prescription in private hospitals around the country and will be available soon in public hospitals, Bruland said. "Over the last four years, we have invested approximately 500 million Thai baht in clinical trials in Thailand," he said. Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Ozempic, which contains the same active ingredient as Wegovy, is already available in Thailand. About 42% of Thailand's adult population is considered obese, and the rate of obesity in school children surged from 5.8% to 15% within two decades, according to data from the country's health ministry. "If we then look at the economic impact that this has, approximately 1 percent of GDP is used for health-related costs that come with obesity and productivity loss," Bruland said. "We believe with this innovation, we can make a big difference and hopefully bend this curve."
Reuters
24-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Ozempic copies restricted after US judge denies injunction
April 24 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday rejected a bid by compounding pharmacies to keep making copies of Novo Nordisk's ( opens new tab popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy while a legal challenge over drug shortages unfolds, court records show. The decision came in response to a February lawsuit from a compounding industry group against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision that there was no longer a shortage of the medicines' active ingredient, semaglutide. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. Compounders had been allowed to produce hundreds of thousands of doses of copies of Novo's obesity and diabetes drugs only while the FDA said they were in short supply. Many of these are sold by large telehealth companies like Hims & Hers. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Texas denied compounders' bid for a preliminary injunction, according to the court docket. Pittman filed his legal reasoning under seal, but by denying the injunction request, a May timeline set by the FDA for when large U.S. compounders will have to exit the market remains in place. It also follows a decision the judge made earlier this year refusing to allow compounding pharmacies to keep making copies of Eli Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab weight-loss and diabetes drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro. The FDA and Novo Nordisk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lee Rosebush, chairman of lead plaintiff Outsourcing Facilities Association, told Reuters that his organization had presented evidence of an ongoing semaglutide shortage that was obtained after the lawsuit was filed. However, Rosebush said the judge declined to consider it, finding that it was filed late. The FDA had said it would not take any enforcement action against compounders before the court ruled. The regulator has given larger so-called outsourcing facilities, which make compounded drugs in bulk and are regulated by the agency, until May 22. Smaller compounding pharmacies, which make drugs to fill prescriptions for individual patients and are primarily overseen by U.S. states, must immediately cease making copies of semaglutide.
Reuters
16-04-2025
- Health
- Reuters
EU authorizes Eisai-Biogen's drug for early Alzheimer's treatment
April 15 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Tuesday authorized the use of Eisai (4523.T), opens new tab and Biogen's (BIIB.O), opens new tab drug to treat some patients with mild cognitive impairment in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, ending a more than two-year-long review process. This makes Leqembi the first approved drug in the European Union that targets an underlying cause of the fatal mind-wasting disease. It had been under regulatory review since January 2023. here. Biogen's head of development, Priya Singhal, said the company and its partner Eisai were "moving with urgency" to make the therapy available to patients in Europe. Rival Eli Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab Alzheimer's drug was rejected last month as its benefits were not significant enough to outweigh serious safety risks. The authorization allows the use of Leqembi to treat people with only one or no copy of the ApoE4 gene and who exhibit sticky clumps of a protein called amyloid beta in the brain, which is believed to be a hallmark of Alzheimer's. The decision to exclude those with two copies of the gene is the regulator leaning on the side of safety, said William Blair analyst Myles Minter. He estimates over $900 million peak sales for the drug in the 2030s. The EC's decision is in line with that of the European Medicines Agency, which recently reiterated that Leqembi would be approved for a narrower set of patients than those in which it was tested. The regulator had backed Leqembi for patients with only one copy of the ApoE4 gene, but the EC had requested another safety review. Initially, the European medicines regulator had refused to back the drug's approval due to serious safety risks. Leqembi is approved in the United States for patients with two copies of the gene, but patients must undergo regular brain scans to monitor for any brain swelling. Leqembi is also approved in Japan, China, Great Britain and several other markets.
