Eli Lilly on Friday said it will acquire Versanis, a privately held obesity drug maker, for up to $1.93 billion to boost the pharmaceutical giant’s weight loss treatment portfolio. Eli Lilly agreed to pay Versanis shareholders in cash, which will consist of an upfront payment and potentially subsequent payments if Versanis achieves certain “development and sales milestones.” Oakland, California-based Versanis, which was founded in 2021 by biotech investment firm Aditum Bio, has one experimental drug for obesity and potentially other conditions. Eli Lilly’s stock price rose 3% on Friday following the announcement. The deal is Eli Lilly’s latest attempt to capitalize on the weight loss industry gold rush, which began last year after Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster injections Wegovy and Ozempic boomed in popularity. An estimated 40% of U.S. adults are obese. Analysts project that the global weight loss drug market could be worth $100 ...
Children who experience racial discrimination are more likely to later have a higher body mass index (BMI) and larger waistline, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open. The findings illustrate that racial discrimination may be a risk factor for young people developing obesity—above and beyond other socioeconomic factors such as family income. “Exposure to racial discrimination must be acknowledged as both a social determinant of obesity and a significant contributor to obesity disparities among children and adolescents,” said Adolfo Cuevas, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the study’s lead author. Childhood obesity is a major public health issue in the U.S., affecting nearly one in five children and teens. Black and Hispanic youth experience even higher rates of obesity, which research shows may stem from factors such as poverty, neighborhood access to healthy foods, and single-parent households. ...
Obesity risk genes make people feel hungrier and lose control over their eating, but practicing dietary restraint could counteract this. New research by University of Exeter, Exeter Clinical Research Facility, and University of Bristol published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that those with higher genetic risk of obesity can reduce the effects that are transmitted via hunger and uncontrolled eating by up to half through dietary restraint. Psychology Ph.D. student, Shahina Begum, from the University of Exeter is lead author and said, “At a time when high calorie foods are aggressively marketed to us, it’s more important than ever to understand how genes influence BMI. We already know that these genes impact traits and behaviors such as hunger and emotional eating, but what makes this study different is that we tested the influence of two types of dietary restraint—rigid and flexible—on the effect of these behaviors.” “What we ...
Eli Lilly’s experimental drug helped patients lose up to 24% of their weight after almost a year, the highest reduction seen in the obesity treatment space to date, according to new mid-stage clinical trial results released Monday. The phase two trial followed 338 adults who were obese or overweight and either received the pharmaceutical company’s injection, retatrutide, or a placebo each week. Patients who took a 12-milligram dose of retatrutide lost 17.5% of their body weight, or 41 pounds, on average after 24 weeks, compared with 1.6% for those who received the placebo. Patients lost 24.2%, or 58 pounds, on average after 48 weeks. Those who took the placebo lost 2.1% of their body weight after that same time period. The trial’s researchers said average weight loss did not appear to plateau after 48 weeks, suggesting a longer study could show even more. Eli Lilly is currently recruiting patients for ...
By Tristan Manalac Pictured: Pfizer sign on building/Tobias Arhelger/Adobe Stock Pfizer is discontinuing the clinical development of its investigational GLP-1 receptor agonist lotiglipron, which was being developed for obesity and Type 2 diabetes mellitus, the company announced Monday. The decision to cut lotiglipron from Pfizer’s pipeline comes after the company detected heightened concentrations of liver transaminases in patients treated with the investigational drug. Lotiglipron was being evaluated in two Phase I drug-drug interaction studies and one Phase II trial. Pharmacokinetic data from the two Phase I studies also contributed to the candidate’s discontinuation. None of the patients developed liver-related symptoms or similar side effects and neither required medical intervention. Pfizer also did not document signs of liver failure among these patients. The company will present lotiglipron data at an upcoming conference or will submit it for publication in peer-reviewed journals. With lotiglipron’s discontinuation, Pfizer will instead focus on the clinical ...
By being undiagnosed or untreated, a significant fraction of people with obesity or overweight are not getting the recommended care, despite an increase in new treatment options, according to research being presented on June 17 at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Ill. “The number of people with obesity is high and rising in the adult U.S. population. Obesity is a complex and expensive disease that has been implicated in many chronic conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases,” said Kyrian Ezendu, Ph.D., an Eli Lilly and Company advisor on benefit-risk research. “Medications to treat obesity are an integral part of long-term care for people with excess weight and are recommended for people with obesity or people with overweight and at least one obesity-related condition.” Ezendu and colleagues used data from linked electronic health records and insurance claims of people ages 18 to 80 years ...
Brain responses to specific nutrients are diminished in individuals with obesity and are not improved after weight loss, according to a study led by Amsterdam UMC and Yale University, published today in Nature Metabolism. “Our findings suggest that long-lasting brain adaptations occur in individuals with obesity, which could affect eating behavior. We found that those with obesity released less dopamine in an area of the brain important for the motivational aspect of food intake compared to people with a healthy bodyweight. Dopamine is involved in the rewarding feelings of food intake,” says Mireille Serlie, lead researcher and Professor of Endocrinology at Amsterdam UMC. “The subjects with obesity also showed reduced responsivity in brain activity upon infusion of nutrients into the stomach. Overall, these findings suggest that sensing of nutrients in the stomach and gut and/or of nutritional signals is reduced in obesity and this might have profound consequences for food ...
In the United States, almost 74% of adults age 20 and older have overweight or obesity, and of that number almost 42% have obesity. Not only are overweight and obesity complex and serious diseases, but clinicians and researchers are continuing to learn how they can impact health outcomes – from heart and musculoskeletal health to risk for disease, including cancer. New research published in the journal SURGERY shows that obesity is also associated with increased risk of complications following surgery, including infection, blood clots, and kidney complications. “We need to continue to recognize that overweight and obesity can have medical impacts that aren’t limited to heart disease and diabetes and liver failure. They can also make recovery from surgery harder, and these data can inform the conversation happening at a broader public health level addressing obesity.” Robert Meguid, MD, MPH, researcher, professor of cardiothoracic surgery in the ...
The stakes are getting even higher for the fight between Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk for supremacy in the multibillion-dollar obesity market. Lilly on Friday quietly registered a new phase 3b trial on clinicaltrials.gov. The study, coded SURMOUNT-5, will pit Lilly’s Mounjaro against Novo’s Wegovy in patients with obesity or overweight with weight-related health conditions. The trial aims to enroll 700 participants from 61 sites in the U.S., Canada, South America and several European countries, according to the post. The study is currently expected to officially start next Friday and last for about 78 weeks, with an estimated primary completion date in February 2025. On the study’s primary endpoint, investigators will compare the percentage weight changes between the two drugs by week 72 from baseline. However, it’s not immediately clear whether Lilly is designing SURMOUNT-5 as a superiority study to show Mounjaro is better than Wegovy or just to show ...
Drugs that combat obesity are under consideration for the first time for the World Health Organization’s “essential medicines list,” used to guide government purchasing decisions in low- and middle-income countries, the U.N. agency told Reuters. A panel of advisers to the WHO will review new requests for drugs to be included next month, with an updated essential medicines list due in September. The request to consider obesity drugs was submitted by three doctors and a researcher in the United States. It covers the active ingredient liraglutide in Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug Saxenda, which will come off patent soon, allowing for cheaper generic versions. The panel could reject the request or wait for more evidence. A decision by the WHO to include Saxenda and eventual generics on the list for adults would mark a new approach to global obesity by the health agency. It could also pave the way for a newer, more ...
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