September 29, 2023 — In case you haven’t been paying attention, FDA issued a new label warning for semaglutide that should remind everyone of a key fact – it’s not suitable for DIY weight loss. The warning went onto the label for the Ozempic brand of semaglutide. It is already there for the Wegovy brand and for the Mounjaro […]
August 28, 2023 — On Friday, NEJM published impressive results in an RCT of semaglutide for treating patients who have obesity and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The treatment enabled these people to function better, feel better, and suffer half as many serious adverse events. These are important benefits for people with a very difficult condition. But […]
August 26, 2023 — Scientists who study semaglutide in obesity are producing a steady stream of impressive results. Yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, a randomized controlled trial in persons with obesity and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction demonstrated superior weight reduction, improvement in heart failure, better physical functioning, and a halving of serious adverse events. […]
August 21, 2023 — How much might the application of new insights from the SELECT study of treating obesity do for preventing heart attacks, strokes, and deaths. A first pass at answering this question appeared in Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy last week. Nathan Wong, Hridhay Karthikeyan, and Wenjun Fan estimated the potential for semaglutide treatment to lower cardiovascular disease […]
August 19, 2023 — The intersection of high U.S. drug prices with its high obesity rates is creating some unusual economics. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Peterson Center on Healthcare released an analysis this week that brings this into sharp focus. The analysis tells us that published prices for GLP-1 medicines used for obesity and diabetes are the […]
August 13, 2023 — Subtly buried in the excitement about results of the SELECT trial is an issue of disparities. The fact is that this is largely a study of White males. Less than four percent of persons in this study were Black, ten percent were Hispanic, and 76 percent were non-Hispanic White. Males comprised 72 percent of the […]
August 11, 2023 — Calm in the midst of a storm is always odd. Has it passed? Or is there more to come? Bedlam pretty much defines the market for obesity care right now. Both Novo Nordisk and Lilly announced robust business results on the strength of impressive new options for treating obesity. Novo released stunning topline results for […]
August 9, 2023 — Yesterday brought us one of the most curious mashups of news we’ve seen in a while. On one hand we have stories about employers and insurance companies conspiring to deny obesity care to their employees and customers; on the other we have the news that the drug they don’t want to cover actually prevents deaths […]
August 8, 2023 — No two ways about it. This is huge. The topline results of the SELECT trial of cardiovascular outcomes with semaglutide in obesity are out and unequivocal. Semaglutide cuts deaths and cardiovascular (CV) events in people with overweight and obesity. An important detail in the announcement of these results regards the three components of the primary […]
July 11, 2023 — The emergence of advanced medicines for obesity is teaching us a lot about the overlapping mechanisms that drive desires for alcohol, food, and more. Desire, it seems, is more than just a feeling. It is the product of biological processes that our bodies regulate. But those processes can clearly go astray, and desire for food, […]
