![]() ![]() WEIGHT LOSS MEDICATION TRIALThen, in late April of this year, Eli Lilly made a splash, publicizing the results of a phase 3 trial of its weight-loss drug, Mounjaro (tirzepatide). Next came Wegovy, which is also made by Novo Nordisk. One-third of patients lost more than 10%. Results from a clinical trial published in 2015 showed that nearly two-thirds of adult patients lost at least 5% of their body weight after 56 weeks of taking Saxenda. First approved in 2014, Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda (liraglutide) was in the vanguard. obesity epidemic is alluring, but drugs for weight loss have a checkered past of lack of long-term efficacy and, in some cases, lack of safety.īut now there is a cohort of new drugs with new mechanisms of action that could bring drug-aided weight loss into the medical mainstream, although their high prices could be an issue. The notion that pharmaceuticals could stem the U.S. Stories like Skomo’s are part of the reason a new class of weight-loss drugs are coming on strong. “And I’m up to about 35 pounds of weight loss now.” “I said to myself, if I could get around a 30-pound weight loss over time, I’d be thrilled,” he says. Nearly a year later, he has lost 18% of his body weight and has a BMI of 23. His only reservation was the potential for gastrointestinal side effects. Skomo talked it over with this wife, who is also a pharmacist, and she agreed. “I could see how this agent is much different than earlier generations of weight-loss medications, he says. A pharmacist by training, Skomo said the fact that Wegovy had a different mechanism of action was a compelling reason for trying it. At the time, Skomo qualified for the drug because he had a body mass index (BMI) of 29 and hypertension. Yet Skomo read the positive results for Wegovy (semaglutide), which the FDA approved in June 2021, and was willing to give it a try. “They were dangerous, they had addictive properties, and it was not something I wanted to get involved in.” “Some of the early products were not providing much benefit at all,” he says. That’s where it really becomes hard.”īut Skomo had never tried weight-loss drugs. “But that also means having the willpower to not eat when your body’s telling you that’s the answer. “If you really work hard and diet and exercise, you lose weight,” he says. And Skomo had some success, but as is so often the case with weight loss, the pounds had a way of coming back. As he grew older, though, it became harder and harder to achieve a healthy weight. Skomo, 50, the chief operating officer of pharmacy benefits manager WellDyne, was a bit overweight in middle school and high school but never obese. “Weight management for me has always been an issue I’ve dealt with, since probably early childhood,” he says. ![]() To understand David Skomo’s struggle to get to a healthy body weight, you need to go back decades. ![]()
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