February 9, 2024 — Are patent thickets boosting the prices of obesity medicine prices and putting these important medical advances out of reach for everyone but the wealthy and well insured? A new paper in JAMA this week suggests this is true – at least in part. Rasha Alhiary and colleagues explain: “Manufacturers have secured long periods of market […]
November 14, 2022 — Two patients. This fits our definition of a small pilot study and Nature Medicine published it recently. In this study, Rajat Shivacharan and colleagues treated binge eating disorder and severe obesity in two patients, using responsive deep brain stimulation. It involves the placement of tiny electrodes in the brain, connected to a pulse generator implanted […]
April 16, 2019 — FDA has just cleared a new capsule for obesity care that doesn’t fit neatly into any of the sorting boxes for obesity treatment. It’s not a drug, even though it looks like one. Instead, it’s a device. It’s a capsule full of hydrogel particles that swell into a mass to help your stomach feel full […]
September 29, 2017 — Spilling blood is never a good thing. But for people living with diabetes, pricking a finger and getting a drop of blood is an all-too-frequent ritual. Now, that ritual may start to fade. Late on Wednesday, FDA approved the first system for monitoring blood sugar levels without the need for routine finger sticks. The FreeStyle Libre […]
May 1, 2017 — Making progress with medical devices to treat obesity is a tedious business. And it comes with many ups and downs. But with a more reasonable pathway for FDA approvals these days, more entrepreneurs are trying to advance their ideas. In the latests news, the folks developing a hunger-curbing stent for obesity have raised $2.1 million […]
August 16, 2016 — Bariatric surgery is clearly the most effective option for reversing type 2 diabetes, but for many people, it’s tough to make that leap. So the quest is on to find a less intimidating treatment that delivers the same benefits. A new study in Diabetes Care points to resurfacing the duodenum as a promising possibility. The […]
June 16, 2016 — FDA has just approved a new gastric drain device for the treatment of severe obesity and it’s easy to find people with strong opinions about it. The AspireAssist system consists of a small tube placed through the skin and into the stomach. It connects to a port on the surface of the skin outside the […]
July 29, 2015 — Late yesterday, FDA approved the first of two gastric balloon devices under review to treat obesity. The ReShape dual balloon is the first new treatment for obesity to be approved for explicitly short-term use — it must be removed after six months or less. On the plus side, it would appear to fill a significant gap […]
January 7, 2015 — With the books closed on FDA obesity approvals for 2014, the scorecard shows drugs coming out ahead of devices by a margin of two to nothing. Both Contrave (buproprion/naltrexone) and Saxenda (liraglutide) won final approval for treating obesity in the second half of 2014. Left waiting on the sidelines was the Maestro VBLOC device, which […]
September 5, 2014 — Entrepreneurs at EnteroMedics developing a new treatment for obesity by blocking the “hunger nerve” (the vagus) have had a bumpy ride along the way. This week, the results of their pivotal clinical trial were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Alongside this publication was a commentary on the state of the […]
