How Many People Can Raise Their Hands for Semaglutide?

Is the glass half full? Or 99% empty? The metaphorical glass in this case is the number of people with a legitimate indication for the remarkable prescription drug generically known as semaglutide. Ivy Shi et al presented an elegant answer at the AHA Scientific Sessions this week and simultaneously published it in JAMA Cardiology.

They mapped out an estimate of how many U.S. adults have a currently approved medical indication for semaglutide. The number is 137 million. Of course, you can be sure that the number of people who eventually take semaglutide will never come close to that number.

At the same time, though, the few million who actually are taking it falls far short of the number of people who might find it life-changing or even life-saving.

Scale and Money

The problem we have with this mostly empty metaphorical glass is twofold – scale and money. The scale for delivering care in U.S. health systems with a medicine that can treat obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is woefully inadequate. Fewer than 10,000 physicians are board certified in obesity medicine. Telehealth services like the Ro Body program are rushing to fill the gap. People are working hard to embed obesity care in primary care settings.

But getting up to speed takes time. And meanwhile, health insurance plans are doing their best to deny people access to this medicine. The manufacturer has done such a poor job of meeting demand for it that the market is overrun with knock-offs.

It is a mess and thinking about the scale of unmet need makes one’s head hurt. Rather than deal with it, more than a few people stick their heads in the sand. The situation is frankly intolerable – because it perpetuates a now unnecessary loss of health and life.

Click here for the analysis from Shi et al, here and here for further perspective.

Dresden Crowd, photograph by Jonas Weckschmied, licensed under CC BY 2.0

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November 21, 2024