May 14, 2024
Steffen Trumpf/dpa; Sipa USA
New research shows Wegovy, the obesity drug from Novo Nordisk, can help people sustain their weight-loss successes for several years and also may provide cardiovascular benefits.
The blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy can help people sustain their weight-loss triumphs for several years and also may provide cardiovascular benefits, according to two new analyses of data from a long-term trial.
A new examination of research published last year found that people maintained an average 10% weight loss over four years while taking Wegovy, Novo Nordisk's obesity drug. The new research, funded by the drug maker, was presented Tuesday at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice, Italy, and published in the journal Nature.
"We see that once the majority of the weight loss is accrued, you don't go back and start to increase in weight if you stay on the drug," Martin Holst Lange, Novo's head of development, told Reuters.
A second analysis of the dataset, also presented this week, revealed that people reaped cardiovascular benefits from taking Wegovy, regardless of how much they weighed before they started taking the medication.
Mounting evidence of the benefits of semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and another popular weight-loss drug, Ozempic, may start pushing federal and private insurers to cover the costly medications.
These analyses used data released in November from the SELECT trial, which involved more than 17,000 patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease who were overweight or obese. Early data from the trial found that Wegovy cuts the risk of heart attack, stroke or death from heart disease by 20%.
In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Wegovy for reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death in adults diagnosed as obese or overweight who also had cardiovascular disease. The FDA approved Wegovy for chronic weight loss management in 2021.
A KFF analysis last month found that the FDA's approval of Wegovy for the use of reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, combined with its use in patients diagnosed with obesity, may open up coverage of the medication for more than 3 million Medicare recipients.
Medicare is currently prohibited from covering the cost of Wegovy. The drug's list price is higher than $1,300 a month without insurance or discounts.
