Obesity: a highly anticipated drug from the Eli Lilly laboratory approved in the United States

2023-11-09 03:19:18

Its results are promising. American health authorities announced on Wednesday that they had approved a highly anticipated drug from the American group Eli Lilly against obesity, the latest entrant into a market that has become major for the pharmaceutical industry. The treatment, which will be marketed as Zepbound in the United States, is administered by injection once a week.

The molecule used was already approved against diabetes, but sometimes already prescribed outside of official recommendations by certain doctors for weight loss, given its effectiveness. In a large clinical trial, Zepbound was shown to provide significant weight loss, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement.

$1,060 per month

Zepbound is now authorized for obese people on the one hand, and for those who are overweight and at the same time suffering from a related health problem (type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, or hypertension), on the other. go. Its use should be combined with exercise and a low-calorie diet, specifies the FDA. The American agency warns of possible side effects: nausea, vomiting, constipation, abdominal pain, etc.

The price was set by Eli Lilly at $1,060 per month, the American company said in a statement, which expects the treatment to be available in the country “by the end of the year “. This expensive price, similar to that of treatments in the same class, poses a problem of access for patients, because anti-obesity drugs are frequently not reimbursed by health insurance in the United States.

“Broader access to these medicines is crucial,” Mike Mason, an executive at the company, said in a statement. “That’s why Lilly is committed to working with healthcare, government and industry partners to ensure that people who can benefit from Zepbound can have access to it.”

This drug belongs to a new generation of treatments, mimicking a gastrointestinal hormone (GLP-1) which activates receptors in the brain playing a role in regulating appetite. According to an analysis by JP Morgan, GLP-1 analogues represent a market worth $140 billion by 2032, which will remain dominated by Eli Lilly and the Danish laboratory Novo Nordisk.