A new weight loss drug hailed as "more powerful than Ozempic" could be approved by medics this year.
Obese patients who took tirzepatide injections lost up to 16% of their body weight, or more than 34 pounds, over nearly 17 months, a recent study found.
The late-stage study of the drug for weight loss adds to earlier evidence that similar participants without diabetes lost up to 22% of their body weight over that period with weekly injections of the drug.
For a typical patienton the study taking the highest dose of the drug, that meant shedding more than 50 pounds.
In California, Matthew Barlow, a 48-year-old health technology executive, said he has lost more than 100 pounds since November by using Mounjaro and changing his diet.
“Psychologically, you don’t want to eat,” said Barlow. “Now I can eat two bites of a dessert and be satisfied.”
It is expected to outpace Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic — a diabetes drug used so commonly to shed pounds that comedian Jimmy Kimmel joked about it at the Oscars — and Wegovy, a version of the drug also known as semaglutide approved for weight loss in 2021.
Together, those drugs made nearly $10 billion in 2022, with prescriptions continuing to soar, company reports show.
Industry analysts predict that tirzepatide could become one of the top-selling drugs ever, with annual sales topping $50 billion.
Dr. Nadia Ahmad, Lilly’s medical director of obesity clinical development, said: “We have not seen this degree of weight reduction."
Based on the new results, which have not yet been published in full, company officials said they will finalise an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for fast-track approval to sell tirzepatide for chronic weight management.
A company spokeswoman would not confirm whether the drug would be marketed for weight loss in the U.S under a different brand name.
If approved for weight loss, tirzepatide could become the most effective drug to date in an arsenal of medications that are transforming the treatment of obesity, which affects more than 4 in 10 American adults and is linked to dozens of diseases that can lead to disability or death.
“If everybody who had obesity in this country lost 20% of their body weight, we would be taking patients off all of these medications for reflux, for diabetes, for hypertension,” said Dr. Caroline Apovian, a director of the Centre for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“We would not be sending patients for stent replacement.”
