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Experimental Weight Loss Drug Beat Ozempic And Wegovy In Early Trial

Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk isn't sitting on its laurels when it comes to weight loss. The Danish-based company has just revealed preliminary data suggesting that its experimental drug amycretin can help people lose even more weight than its already blockbuster drug semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Even better, amycretin is taken as a pill, as opposed to the injections needed for Ozempic and Wegovy.

Researchers presented the company's data on amycertin at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes this week, which comes from a Phase I trial of people living with obesity. Those taking amycretin were found on average to lose 13.1% of their body weight over a 12 week period—far above the average weight loss seen in those taking a placebo and on pace to perhaps even surpass the success seen with semaglutide.

For comparison, people taking high dose semaglutide in clinical trials have been found to lose about 6% of their body weight on average after three months and about 15% body weight after six months. That raises the tantalizing possibility that people on amycretin could expect to lose 25% or more weight during the same period, an average level of weight loss not seen with any current obesity medication and comparable with the most effective bariatric surgeries.

"It's almost like a miracle pill," Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist and the senior medical director for the Population Health Management Office at Duke Health, told NBC News.

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Novo Nordisk's data has yet to be vetted by outside experts, an important part of the scientific process. And it's still only Phase I data, which is explicitly only designed to tell us whether a drug is safe to keep testing in humans, not to confirm its effectiveness. On that end, the company reported that the adverse effects seen with the drug were generally mild to moderate and comparable to those seen in semaglutide. The most common side effects with semaglutide are gastrointestinal, such as nausea and diarrhea, though these symptoms tend to wane over time.

The pharmacology behind amycretin does lend support to the idea that it could beat semaglutide. Semaglutide mimics the gut hormone GLP-1, which helps regulate our blood sugar and sense of hunger, among other things. But amycretin is designed to mimic both GLP-1 and another hormone key to our hunger and blood sugar regulation, amylin. Eli Lilly's competing drug tirzepatide, sold under the names Mounjaro and Zepbound, deploys a similar dual-action strategy (albeit using GLP and the hormone GIP), and has been found to provide greater weight loss on average than semaglutide as well.

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Much more data in humans confirming amycreitin's effectiveness and safety will be needed before it would be able to reach the public. But this is just one of many promising leads in the future of weight loss treatment being developed by Novo Nordisk and its competitors. One of the company's other candidates, CagriSema, blends together another amylin analog with semaglutide, for instance, and early results have suggested a similar level of weight loss as projected with amycretin.

People Who Haven't Been Able To Lose Weight With Injectables May Find Help With New Trial

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Local researchers are looking for people who may need some additional support to lose weight.

The team at Velocity Clinical Research helped launch the new weight loss medications that are now available as injectables, called GLP-1s.

Now this same team is working on the next generation of those medications.

They are looking for people with diabetes to participate in a clinical trials, who'd like to lose weight.

"We are currently doing a study which is exploring higher doses in individuals with BMIs over 35," said Dr. Matt Wenker with Velocity.

That means if your weight is up and you've tried some of the injectable medications but have not had success,

the trial would provide you with the same kind of medication at a level that might help you succeed.

And in this trial, there's no placebo. Everybody in the trial does get the actual medication at no cost to you.

"They basically decrease hunger, they work in the satiety center to decrease your craving for food, they delay gastric emptying so the food stays in your stomach longer and they also help with insulin secretion."

In addition, the team is also testing a pill, instead of an injectable medication, that works this way Dr. Matt Wenker said this pill delivery could be beneficial to patients who are above ideal body weight, in a number of ways.

"With these oral medications, they can be produced on a greater scale than some of these injectable medications."

That means, he says we could reduce the shortages of these drugs.

If you'd like more information on any of these weight loss trials you can call (984) 666-5676 or go online.

If you qualify for a trial, you are paid for your time and travel and there is no cost to you.

Early Trial Shows Success For Daily Weight Loss Pill: 3 Things To Know

The maker of injectable weight loss drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy is touting the results of an early-stage trial that delivered weight loss success by taking a daily pill.

Novo Nordisk released data Wednesday showing that patients taking its new medication, a pill known as amycretin, lost up to 13% of their body weight after 12 weeks, with mild to moderate side effects.

The data from the Phase I study was presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting in Madrid.

PHOTO: In this undated stock photo, a hand is shown holding pills. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)

The daily pill medication, which remains several years from hitting the market, has the potential to mark a turning point in the fight against obesity, a medical condition that affects nearly 42% of people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here are three things to know about amycretin.

1. It has only been studied in a small clinical trial.

The study results released Wednesday by Novo Nordisk were based on a small trial of 124 participants.

The researchers found that after 12 weeks, participants on the highest doses of amycretin lost 13.1% of their total body weight, compared to the placebo group that lost 1.1% of their body weight over 12 weeks.

Study participants taking amycretin reported mild to moderate side effects including nausea and vomiting.

Given that the results come from such a small trial, it could take several years for amycretin to hit the market, according to Dr. Leah Croll, a Philadelphia-based neurologist who was not involved in the trial.

"The journey from lab to your local pharmacy shelf is a years-long journey, typically, for these drugs," Croll said Thursday on "Good Morning America." "It involves multiple rounds of clinical trials, big trials that may take years to execute, so I'd say we're looking at least a couple of years."

Croll added, "We really need longer term studies and larger studies to better understand the safety profile of this medication."

2. Amycretin targets 2 types of hormones.

Like Ozempic and Wegovy, amycretin mimics the effects of GLP-1, a type of hormone in the body that impacts everything from the brain to muscle to the pancreas, stomach and liver.

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Amycretin differs from other drugs though in also mimicking a second hormone, amylin, which is responsible for helping to regulate blood sugar levels and slowing gastric emptying, prompting the feeling of fullness.

3. Pill form would make amycretin more accessible.

Currently, drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy that are taken weekly by injection can cost upwards of $1,000 per month without health insurance. A pill form of semaglutide, the same medicine in Wegovy, called Rybelsus, is currently FDA-approved for the management of Type 2 Diabetes.

The fact that amycretin -- which appears, from early clinical data, to be as effective as injectable weight loss medications -- is taken as a pill instead of as an injection may make it more accessible, according to Croll.

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She noted that in addition to being more expensive, injectable medications are often more difficult for patients to manage.

"To have a pill that would be more affordable, more accessible, easier for patients to deal with, could be a really, really big deal for them," Croll said.

Early trial shows success for daily weight loss pill: 3 things to know originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.Com

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