Posts Tagged ‘anti-obesity medicines’

Yesterday brought us one of the most curious mashups of news  we’ve seen in a while. On one hand we have stories about employers and insurance companies conspiring to deny obesity care to their employees and customers; on the other we have the news that the drug they don’t want to cover actually prevents deaths […]

On Friday, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released remarkably detailed results from a survey of public awareness and beliefs about new obesity medicines. It offers much for us to think about. But at the very top line it puts some solid numbers on a basic fact about the public response to breakthrough medicines for obesity. […]

Message to University of Texas Employees: Continuing to pay for obesity medicines is unsustainable. Message from Novo Nordisk: No comment. Price shocks for advanced obesity medicines are hitting employers. Things are starting to get messy in the marketplace and you can be pretty sure that they will only get messier as makers of obesity medicines […]

Obesity care is in an awkward phase. Science has advanced to provide a better understanding of this complex disease and better tools to treat it. But health systems and public understanding can’t keep up. As a result, very effective new obesity medicines exist behind walls that keep most people from receiving their benefits. For now, […]

An intense battle is rumbling along in the courts and in the United States Congress and it’s all about drug pricing. The pharmaceutical industry enjoys considerable flexibility in drug prices for the U.S. Because of this, branded, patent-protected drugs are five times more expensive in the U.S. than in other nations with advanced economies. Change […]

A recent thread in the ongoing public discourse about new, advanced obesity medicines relates to how long people should take them and how long they actually do take them. The revelation that started this is data from a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) indicating that two-thirds of patients typically stop taking them within a year. So […]

Four years ago, bimagrumab was a castoff from Novartis. That company had originally developed this monoclonal antibody for treating a rare muscle disease. But it failed spectacularly with disappointing results from a phase 2b study in 2016. That was a big disappointment, so it’s little wonder that Novartis walked away. Three years later, a glimmer […]

In thoughtful reporting for Fortune, Rachel Shin explores the possibility for broader access to advanced obesity meds leading to lower prices. But it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg puzzle because it might be more likely that lower prices will lead to broader access. Novopoly Shin calls it a Novopoly. Novo Nordisk invested billions of dollars […]

The last of four big days at ADA2023 brought us astonishing results from three studies of a new obesity medicine, retatrutide. This is the first 3-in-1 metabolic receptor agonist to advance this far in clinical trials as a medicine for obesity or diabetes. Researchers presented phase 2 results for obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD – three […]

“We may be on the cusp of an era of astonishing innovation – the limits of which aren’t even clear yet,” writes David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times. Among other breakthroughs, he cites the transformation in care that semaglutide and tirzepatide are bringing for the most prevalent chronic disease in the world – obesity. […]