April 19, 2025 — This is an odd way of making America healthy. In fact, the recent, chaotic actions of the new administration seem destined to do precisely the opposite by slashing research and censoring scientists who labor long and hard to advance medical knowledge. A new letter in Lancet puts it bluntly: “In the setting of stalling life […]
April 4, 2025 — On Tuesday, as part of mass firings, the powers that be at FDA lined people up to fire them. Security guards delivered the news. Clumsily. Now, just two days later, it seems they want a do over. The Washington Post reports the agency is trying to bring back a big chunk of people they fired: […]
March 25, 2025 — People who know describe the National Institutes of Health as the crown jewels of American biomedical research. It is the biggest public funder of medical research in the world. It appears that our government is in the process of burning down a great deal of medical science at NIH. This is becoming obvious, even though […]
March 14, 2025 — Twenty-nine years ago, scientists discovered that GLP-1 agonists, acting in the brain, could regulate feeding behaviors. In a keynote address to the Columbia Cornell Obesity Medicine course yesterday, Richard DiMarchi presented a compelling, detailed description of how this all unfolded. Way back in 1996, DiMarchi and colleagues at Lilly sought a patent for using a […]
March 11, 2025 — Drug development is tricky. If you want evidence for just how tricky it is, a quick look at the experience with CagriSema will give you a pretty good idea. Yesterday, Novo Nordisk announced topline results of this drug from their REDEFINE 2 clinical trial. Their press release talked about “superior results” for people with overweight […]
February 7, 2025 — Novo Nordisk and Lilly reported on their business results this week for the final quarter of 2024. These reports brought clarity on a number of points, but to us, one thing stands out. We are moving from euphoria and hype about limitless possibilities in obesity to the realities of market competition and incremental progress. Sales […]
January 30, 2025 — A new paper in JAMA Network Open documents just how dizzy the pace of change in prescribing for obesity care has been in the last seven years. Prescriptions for obesity medicines have doubled. Phentermine prescribing has grown – it’s generic, cheap, and effective. Even now, it accounts for almost half of obesity medicine prescriptions. But […]
January 29, 2025 — FDA yesterday approved Ozempic (semaglutide) to prevent kidney failure and death in persons with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. This fits with one of the five trends for this year: the steady expansion of health benefits for advanced medicines used in obesity and diabetes. But note that this approval covers the use of […]
January 25, 2025 — The race to innovate beyond semaglutide and tirzepatide for obesity can be utterly confusing. More than a hundred new drugs are in various stages of development and analysts expect more than a dozen to be launched within the next five years. But right now, all we have are tantalizing – and sometimes disappointing – results […]
November 27, 2024 — Yesterday, Amgen released topline data on their remarkable monthly obesity medicine – MariTide or maridebart cafraglutide. To us, the results are impressive, albeit preliminary. In 52 weeks of study, patients with obesity or overweight lost approximately 20% of their initial body weight and even after a year, they appeared to still be losing weight. For […]
