I think the new pills will make healthy weights much more achievable for everyone even a few pounds over weight. This is likely to be the biggest thing in “longevity” for the average person in the near future, and it gets people in the mental space of taking medications for health maintenance… which will lead to more interest in real longevity drugs…
From today’s Washington Post:
Ozempic 2.0 is on the way, and it could be even more transformative
Ozempic, and the class of weight loss drugs it has come to embody, has left its imprint seemingly everywhere: On the lives of millions of patients who’ve lost unprecedented amounts of weight. On grocery store shelves with new offerings explicitly catering to those taking the drugs. Even in the calculations of insurance companies studying the drugs’ effects on mortality. (Yes, there are Ozempic guides to Thanksgiving.)
For all the societal changes ushered in by GLP-1 drugs, their lofty price tags limit who can afford them. Many patients stop taking the medications after experiencing undesirable side effects. Others who could benefit have stayed on the sidelines because they don’t want to jab themselves.
A new wave of the medicine is coming that could be even more transformative for human health: pills, more potent injectables and new compounds that might have fewer side effects or could be taken just once a month.
“With this newer generation of medications, we’re not just focusing on weight loss,” said David Lau, an endocrinologist and professor emeritus at the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine. “We’re talking about changes beyond what you see on the scale.”
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are both preparing to launch once-a-day weight loss pills by next year if the FDA approves them, as is widely expected. That would allow patients to avoid the jab of auto-injector pens with tiny needles.
“Some people are afraid of using needles and giving themselves injections,” Lau said.
Pills don’t require refrigeration — which adds cost and complexity to shipping and storing injectable medications — and there are signs that their price tags will be lower.
“What Henry Ford did with the car wasn’t to make a better car. He just made more of them and made them more accessible,” said Sean Wharton, a physician-researcher in Toronto and the lead author of two New England Journal of Medicine papers on oral GLP-1 drugs published in September. By offering more convenience at a lower cost, he said, these pills could do something similar for weight loss.
The trade-off is that pills being tested so far don’t work as well. In clinical trials stretching over a year, participants taking each drug have lost an average of about 11 to 14 percent of their body weight. That compares to about 15 to 20 percent weight loss for the most effective drugs given by injection.
Anticipation of the pills is so great that they are already included in drug price negotiations with the White House. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly struck deals with the Trump administration earlier this month to offer certain medications at a discount in exchange for access to Medicare, which until now has been prohibited from covering medications for weight loss. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly said they would offer the lowest dose of their new pills, if approved, directly to consumers for $150 a month.
História completa: Ozempic 2.0 is on the way, and it could be even more transformative