How Long Til We’re All on Ozempic?
11th October 2024
Obesity medication has something of a troubled past. Fen-phen, a weight-loss drug combination popular in the 1990s, was pulled after it was found to cause heart valve problems. Sibutramine, sold under the brand name Meridia, was prescribed until it was discovered to lead to adverse cardiovascular events including strokes in 2010.
But the market for an effective weight-loss drug is too big and the potential profits too high for pharmaceutical companies to give up. More than one in eight people around the world live with obesity. In the United States, it’s more than two in five. Though many clinical trials of weight-loss drugs over the past decade ended in failure, it was only a matter of time until a successful drug emerged.
GLP-1 medications 1 like Ozempic appear to be that drug. Estimates suggest GLP-1s can reduce body weight by at least 15% when taken regularly?—?and perhaps even more as newer drugs come to market. And though evidence is still being gathered, they may have benefits beyond weight loss: potentially curbing drinking, treating sleep apnea, and reducing risk of stroke. They’ve been called, in many places, a miracle drug, and as such, the category is poised for massive growth. Gallup estimated that 15.5 million Americans have tried them, and half as many are currently using them.
Obesity is the premier First World medical problem of our age. Doctors profit thereby, and the incentives are all for them to restrict access (FDA approval process, requiring a prescription) to any safe and effective weight-loss drug.
Will Big Pharma win over Big Medicine? Stand by.