Novo Nordisk: patients using Wegovy maintain weight loss over 4 years

According to Reuters, patients taking Novo Nordisk (NVO)'s blockbuster obesity treatment drug Wigoby maintain an average weight loss of 10% even 4 years after starting treatment.

Since there are doubts about the long-term efficacy of this data, there is a possibility that it will be useful in the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to persuade insurance companies and governments where the scope of application of treatments is limited.

Martin Holst Lange, the person responsible for development at Novo (NVO), told Reuters, “This is the longest study ever conducted on semaglutide for weight loss purposes.” Semaglutide is the main active ingredient in Wegovy, as are other popular diabetes and weight loss medications such as Novoz (NVO) Ozempic.

“Once most of your body weight is lost, it won't return to normal and start gaining weight even if you keep taking the medicine,” Lange added.

The pharmaceutical company presented new long-term data recorded from large-scale slate-stage trials at the European Obesity Conference held in Venice, Italy. Most of the results were made public last year.

The study, which enrolled over 17,000 obese or overweight adults, showed that Wegovy had cardiovascular benefits regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or obesity level.

While Wegovy and other weight loss medications are in short supply and expensive, demand continues to skyrocket. Additionally, health care providers only offer limited coverage for these medications. The UK's National Health Service offers just 2 years of insurance for people taking Wegovy.

Medicare doesn't cover Wegovy or other bariatric medications. A recent survey by KFF of approximately 1,500 adults showed that 6 out of 10 respondents think Medicare should cover these medications.