April 11, 2025 — It’s hard to miss the headlines about wild gyrations in financial markets and tariff policies that have been coming in and out of view. We’re doing our best to stay out of those crosscurrents which threaten to become riptides. But the threat to place “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” is hard to ignore, simply because […]
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 28, 2025 — Novo Nordisk went shopping this week and brought home a super-early-phase triple-G agonist for the low low price of $200 million in cash up front. On top of that, Novo will pay another $1.8 billion plus royalties if all goes well. That’s a tidy sum to pay for rights to a drug – UBT251 – […]
March 24, 2025 — There’s no denying it. More people are getting access to care for obesity than ever before. In part this is because health professionals have a range of tools for providing that care. GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide and tirzepatide are a big part of that.But those drugs carry a price tag that is blowing up pharmacy […]
February 27, 2025 — More than a decade ago, targeting amylin receptors for treating obesity looked like hot opportunity. Amylin, a peptide hormone co-secreted with insulin by pancreatic beta cells, plays a role in regulating satiety and food intake. An amylin analog, pramlintide, gained FDA approval for treating diabetes. But efforts to develop it for treating obesity never quite […]
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 […]
February 4, 2025 — Chasing the possibility of multi-billion dollar obesity medicines, pharmaceutical companies are jumping at the chance to spend billions in clinical research. But patient advocates find a reluctance from some of those same companies to take people with obesity into account in the drug labels for their products already on the market. Writing for In Vivo, […]
January 31, 2025 — For persons with obesity and prediabetes, one of the best ways to prevent diabetes onset is quite clear. Treat the obesity to reduce the excess adiposity. The Diabetes Prevention Program established this with a study in the NEJM way back in 2002. A prescription of diet and exercise could cut the risk of diabetes in […]
January 16, 2025 — This will be an interesting year for drug pricing, especially for obesity medicines – if you can even figure out what is really going on with them. It appears that list prices for Ozempic (semaglutide), Mounjaro (tirzepatide), and Zepbound (also tirzepatide) have all gone up this year. The Wegovy (semaglutide) list price did not change. […]
January 8, 2025 — Drug development for obesity may well be in a golden age. In large part, this is because the scientific understanding of obesity has grown exponentially in the past two decades. Unfortunately, little or none of that is reflected in new draft guidance from FDA, issued yesterday for public comment, on developing the next generation of […]
