September 3, 2022 — ICER – the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review – has released its final report on the effectiveness and value of obesity meds and set a public hearing for September 16. Let’s say it right up front. This private nonprofit is trying to do something that is almost impossibly hard. Making objective sense from the […]
March 13, 2018 — It’s a tale of two obesity drug makers. One – Orexigen – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. Orexigen markets Contrave, a combination drug made from bupropion and naltrexone. The other company – Novo Nordisk – is building upon the early success of its obesity drug, Saxenda (liraglutide 3mg). Why are the fortunes of these two companies so […]
July 11, 2016 — Now in the second year since approval of liraglutide for treating obesity, a pattern is becoming clear. While other obesity drugs struggle, liraglutide gains momentum. The momentum is evident in growing prescriptions for Saxenda (the brand name for liraglutide sold by Novo Nordisk at the dose for obesity). For the second quarter of 2016, total prescriptions for Saxenda […]
June 23, 2016 — A new commentary published in the International Journal of Obesity brings attention to rising concerns about the double stigma of addiction and obesity. Nasreen Alfaris and colleagues present the case of a patient at the Mass General Weight Management Center distressed by being characterized as a drug addict during a bariatric pre-op evaluation. The reason? […]
June 17, 2016 — A new study published this week in JAMA provides useful perspective on the safety and efficacy of the newer obesity meds now available for managing the chronic disease of obesity. Rohan Khera and colleagues integrated the results for 29,018 patients in 28 published clinical trials and concluded: Among overweight or obese adults, orlistat [Alli, Xenical], […]
April 15, 2016 — Ample confusion and progress can be found right now in the work of developing and delivering new medications for obesity care. Though we have some good options for treating obesity, we have a tremendous gap of unmet need between the extremes of behavioral therapy and surgical treatments for obesity. Though four new obesity meds have […]
March 16, 2016 — Contrave, a combination of bupropion and naltrexone, will be going back to Orexigen, which is the small biotech company that developed it as a treatment for obesity. Takeda, which launched the drug less than two years ago under a licensing agreement with Orexigen, announced Tuesday that it had decided to give up the marketing rights for Contrave in the […]
October 6, 2015 — Recent reports from business analysts are making it clear that Saxenda is succeeding in the market for obesity treatment where other competitors are struggling. Marketed by Novo Nordisk, Saxenda is the fourth new obesity drug treatment introduced in the last four years. The other three — Qsymia, Belviq, and Contrave — all seem to be […]
June 6, 2015 — It’s a bumpy ride right now for people who are trying to make a business of providing obesity care. This really applies to all segments — consumer weight management, medical obesity care, pharmaceuticals, surgery — but the most visible evidence of bumpiness is playing out in the pharmaceutical segment of obesity care. On one hand, […]
May 14, 2015 — Investment in obesity research and development is a scarce resource. There’s no supply of money to burn. So the news of the termination of a large, expensive cardiovascular outcomes trial of naltrexone/bupropion (Contrave) is sad news indeed. This was the inevitable result of a mistake involving premature release of interim data from this study. As […]
