Are we witnessing a turning point in the fight against obesity? After decades of failures in the development of effective treatments, the arrival of a new generation of drugs, which show particularly promising clinical results (between 15% and 20% weight loss on average), has aroused great enthusiasm among patients in recent years. To the point that their manufacturers, overwhelmed by orders, are having difficulty meeting demand, even though their factories are working at full capacity.
With more than a billion people worldwide affected by obesity, including 890 million adults, there is no shortage of potential customers for these treatments. Especially since these numbers continue to grow. In the space of thirty years, the obesity rate has more than doubled among adults and quadrupled among children and adolescents. A boon for Denmark’s Novo Nordisk and America’s Lilly, the pharmaceutical laboratories behind Wegovy and Zepbound, these new and sought-after anti-obesity drugs. The manufacturers have not had to go to great lengths to popularize their products. On social media, euphoric anonymous people, with viral before-and-after photos of the treatment, have taken it upon themselves to promote it. As have celebrities, such as Elon Musk or Oprah Winfrey, who sing its praises.
Available only on prescription, Wegovy and Zepbound (called “Mounjaro” in Europe) come in the form of pre-filled injectable pens, which patients self-administer weekly, like the solutions available in the treatment of diabetes. The coincidence is not fortuitous. Both are part of the family of GLP-1 analogues, which includes in particular semaglutide and tirzepatide, their respective active ingredients, already used for several years as antidiabetics due to their blood sugar regulating properties.
“A solid scientific basis”
Although these products, which also slow down gastric emptying and increase the feeling of satiety, are now in vogue among obese patients, they are in fact far from being new. The first GLP-1 analogue, exenatide, was marketed by the American company Lilly in 2005 for the treatment of diabetes.
In 2014, liraglutide (Saxenda) was the first in this class of drugs to gain approval for the treatment of obesity. “Since then, they have been widely used and have numerous studies that attest to a solid scientific basis, although we are still far from having exhausted all knowledge about them.”notes epidemiologist Mahmoud Zureik, director of Epi-Phare, the public body that measures the efficacy and safety of drugs.
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