After the extraordinary results (also cheap) of the punctures based on traffic lights and tirzepatide, pharmaceutical companies from all over the world are working on dozens of medicines to lose weight. Some of them have almost completed the experimentation phase and will arrive in a short time on the market. And everyone’s goal is to have the same effects, …
The race to the new anti-grassy drugs has begun, and in the race there are almost all the super powers in the world, from the United States to China, passing through Europe. After the Exploit of Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, able to make it lose from 15 to 22 percent of the weight in just over a year, now the subject of discussion – especially at the table – for their significant effects against obesity, now there is no pharmaceutical house that does not want to test and produce similar molecules, or even more effective. It is the new large business, because they are very popular drugs that guarantee enormous revenues. At the moment, almost four years after the approval by the US regulatory agency FDA, one of eight American uses it. In Europe, medicines of this type – semaglutide and tirzepatide – have been authorized for obesity with a lot of delay, despite the fact that their studies had demonstrated their beneficial effects also on cardiovascular diseases, blood sugar, obstructive apneas and other very serious pathologies. The Danish Novo-Nordisk, the first pharmaceutical home to have produced them, in 2024 revenues revenues for almost 39 billion euros, an increase of 25 percent compared to 2023 and double 2019, when these drugs were not yet on the market. But it is estimated that the global market of these “blockbusters” are expired towards 100 billion, if not more, of overall value. At the moment, almost 160 experimentation lines are underway in the world, aimed at searching for “whatever” works against body fat. Some trials are already in phase 3, so they could be close to approval and then marketing.
Almost all these studies are directed towards the same GLP-1 receptors (hormones produced by brain and intestine after meals) against which Ozempic and Wegovy act. “With the discovery of the Glp-1 agonists is as if the research had found the combination to access a safe” explains Carlo Sbraccia, an internal medicine ordinary of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and member of the board of the European Society Obesity. «Discovering that inside the nervous system there are the receptors of these hormones, we have the grimaldello to search – mixing the molecules – to create other drugs that can translate into further benefits. There are trials in progress, with combinations of active ingredients that perhaps make you lose weight a little less, but they manage to act on the liver, or kidneys or other organs. We are also looking for-and 20 trials go in this direction-to synthesize unique molecules, capable of interacting with three receptors, rather than only with the GLP-1, to make them even more effective and with minor side effects ».
Novo-Nordisk and Lilly are engaged in trials to “convert” in drugs administered by mouth Their injections to be made weekly, so as to make the therapy easier to follow and also favor those patients who do not like or even cannot accept the idea of making a sting (typically in the belly) every week. But there are those who also seek other roads: the American pharmaceutical company AMgen has launched two advanced phase studies for its Maritide injection, which constitutes a new approach to the treatment of obesity: a monoclonal antibody linked to two peptides, which has made it possible to lose up to 20 percent weight in a year. In this race to the anti-grassing drug, Europe does not remain to watch: the German Boehringer is leading five phase three studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the Survoductide (agonist of the GLP-1 receptors and glucagon, hormone issued by the pancreas): the phase two data had shown that the combination of these molecules was able to reduce the weight of 20 percent after only ten months. While Astrazeneca English focuses on oral therapies: it is developing the AZD5004 pill, in phase 2 of experimentation, which aims to reduce the side effects of the GLP-1 agonists. The results will come by the end of 2025. On the drug by mouth, the Californians Structure Therapeutics and Viking Therapeutics are also strongly focusing, the latter just entered phase 2 trials with a tablet that has shown to obtain an huge weight loss and a few side effects, among other things very slight.
What about China? The Asian giant also arrives: Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals wants to enter the world of the fight against obesity with an injectable GLP-1 agonist who would have “beaten” Ozempic in a phase two study: the drug, called GZR18, is administered every two weeks (therefore more comfortable and sustainable for patients) and has allowed us to get to a weight loss of 18 percent in just over seven months, with more intestinal gastroal effects. content. Not all trials, however, proceed as forecast. Just Novo-Nordisk just a couple of weeks ago shared the news that their new product, called Cagrisema, formulated to be more powerful than the predecessors, did not give the desired results: the effect was that of an immediate loss of 10 percent stock exchange. “The trials are very expensive and long,” concludes Sbraccia. «We are not talking about aspirins, but of innovative, complex drugs, of advanced molecules: a technology that requires immense costs to be developed. The theme of the future will be in the bargaining between governments and pharmaceutical companies: because the prices will go down as a result of the competition, but will still remain high ».
While waiting for the advent of Godzilla: produced by Eli Lilly, it is not yet authorized even in the USA. It is based on retatutride, it promises an almost double weight loss compared to previous drugs and, unlike them, also accelerates the metabolism. Indeed, many patients enrolled in the experiments have reported an almost excessive weight loss – 25 percent of the weight in less than a year – turning on a beacon on potentially dangerous effects. In any case, the research, between ups and downs, runs faster and faster: the world epidemic of obesity, which now involves over a billion people, could have, if not the days, at least the years counted.
