Posts Tagged ‘semaglutide’

This is a truly remarkable finding. In the middle of the SELECT study of semaglutide for preventing deaths in people with obesity and heart disease, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. So researchers nimbly adapted and began collecting data on COVID outcomes. They found a big surprise. People who got COVID-19 and were treated with semaglutide had […]

How big might the semaglutide budget bomb be? The authors of a new brief report in Annals of Internal Medicine today are making a point. How threatening can we make this sound? Right up front in their title, they label their estimates as the “maximum costs of expanded Medicare coverage of semaglutide for cardiovascular risk […]

Novo Nordisk is creeping up on an indication for semaglutide in people with obesity and heart failure. Today in Lancet, we have another piece of the puzzle to suggest this drug might help. In a prespecified analysis from the SELECT study, researchers found that semaglutide reduced heart attacks, strokes, deaths, and problems with heart failure […]

Yesterday, Eli Lilly and Company announced an impressive topline number from the results of a three-year study of tirzepatide in adults with obesity or overweight and prediabetes. That number was 94% prevention of progression from prediabetes to diabetes with tirzepatide. No, it was not 100%. But this is awfully close. Historical Context We will have to […]

Semaglutide – under the banner of Ozempic – has set a revolution of obesity medicines in motion. Suddenly, all of the huffing and puffing about “treating obesity seriously” and “obesity as a disease” is moot. Facts on the ground are persuading people to re-orient their thinking about obesity faster than essays and advocacy campaigns ever […]

Never is a long time and repeatedly telling people NO can be a futile exercise. Thus, doctors are landing somewhere between no and maybe on the use of compounded obesity medicines. Some are seeing a rationale for for using them while others remain resolute in opposition to them. Shauna Levy is an obesity medicine physician […]

This week has given us a study in contrasts. The leading makers of obesity medicines, Lilly and Novo Nordisk, posted quarterly reports and received sharply different responses. When Novo Nordisk released their report on Wednesday, the market value of the stock plunged by eight percent. The next day, Lilly reported results and saw its market […]

Should we celebrate the news that, in FDA drug shortage listings, all forms of tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) are listed as “available”? Is this a sign that we are on our way to the nightmarishly short supply of GLP1s will soon be behind us? Forgive us for being skeptical, but we’re not quite ready to […]

On the theme of “Is there anything GLP-1s can’t do?” a new randomized controlled trial is coming at us from the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. It showed promising signs that a GLP-1, liraglutide, might slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Liraglutide is used under the brand name Victoza to treat type 2 diabetes. At higher […]

A fascinating new study in Annals of Internal Medicine asks an important question. When people receive semaglutide for type 2 diabetes, are they less likely to smoke? This is not such a random question. In fact, clinicians are reporting striking reductions in addictive behaviors by people receiving it for obesity. So William Wang and colleagues […]