GLP-1s tested for uses beyond weight reduction, diabetes

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Good afternoon! The list of potential health advantages from a booming class of weight reduction and diabetes drugs is barely growing longer. 

Latest mid-stage trial data on Tuesday showed that Novo Nordisk‘s older, once-daily GLP-1 for diabetes and obesity called liraglutide may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by protecting patients’ brains. 

Only a day earlier, a latest study found that semaglutide – the energetic ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s weight reduction injection Wegovy and diabetes counterpart Ozempic – may additionally help people quit smoking. 

Those GLP-1 treatments mimic hormones produced within the gut to suppress an individual’s appetite and regulate blood sugar. Researchers also consider that the drugs may help treat other conditions through additional effects on the body, corresponding to reducing inflammation. 

But way more research is required to verify that. Larger and longer trials are also needed before regulators can approve any weight reduction and diabetes drugs for added uses. 

In the primary major step to permit wider use of the drugs, the Food and Drug Administration in March cleared Wegovy for slashing the chance of significant heart complications. 

Additional approvals for the drug and other weight reduction medications could put more pressure on insurers to cover the treatments, lots of which might cost roughly $1,000 per thirty days. Spotty insurance coverage for Wegovy and other treatments for weight reduction has been a serious barrier to access for patients. 

Listed here are a few of the other conditions that GLP-1s are being tested for: 

Cardiovascular health 

• Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy slashed the general risk of heart attack, stroke and death from cardiovascular causes by 20% in patients with obesity and heart disease in a late-stage trial. 
• Wegovy helped individuals with obesity, diabetes and heart failure have fewer cardiovascular symptoms like fatigue and breathlessness in a large trial. 
• Eli Lilly is conducting a late-stage trial on tirzepatide – the energetic ingredient in its weight reduction drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro – for patients with obesity and heart failure. The study is predicted to be accomplished this month.

Chronic kidney disease

• Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic delayed the progression of chronic kidney disease in diabetes patients, cutting the chance of death from that and major cardiac events by 24% in a late-stage trial. 
• Eli Lilly is studying tirzepatide in a mid-stage study in patients with obesity and chronic kidney disease. The trial is predicted to finish in 2026.   

Fatty liver disease

• Eli Lilly’s Zepbound helped as much as 74% of patients grow to be freed from the disease with no worsening of liver scarring, compared with 13% of people that didn’t receive the treatment at 52 weeks in a mid-stage trial. 
• Novo Nordisk is studying semaglutide in a late-stage trial for a typical form of fatty liver disease. 
• Other drugmakers, corresponding to Zealand Pharma, Viking Therapeutics, and Altimmune are also studying their respective weight reduction or diabetes treatments in patients with fatty liver disease. 

Sleep apnea

• Eli Lilly’s Zepbound helped resolve moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in as much as 52% of patients in two late-stage trials. The FDA is currently reviewing Zepbound for that use. 

Alzheimer’s disease

Addiction

• Outside researchers are studying the potential of GLP-1s to curb addictive behaviors, including nicotine and alcohol use.
• Novo Nordisk is planning a study with a secondary goal of seeing whether semaglutide and other treatments can change day by day alcohol consumption, in response to the U.S. government’s clinical trials registry. The fundamental goal of mid-stage trial is measuring the drugs’ impact on liver scarring in patients with alcoholic-relate liver disease. 

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Heads of Commure, Augmedix share details about latest acquisition

The health-care sector cannot get enough of AI documentation tools. Just ask the chief executives of Commure and Augmedix.

On July 19, Commure agreed to take Augmedix private in an all-cash deal. Commure will purchase all of Augmedix’s outstanding common stock at a complete equity value of about $139 million, in response to a release. Augmedix shareholders will receive $2.35 per share. The corporate’s board unanimously approved the deal, the discharge said. 

CNBC caught up with Commure CEO Tanay Tandon and Augmedix CEO Manny Krakaris on Monday to learn just a little more concerning the acquisition and what it means for each organizations. 

Tandon said the 2 firms initially met to speak about partnership opportunities since they each are vendors for HCA Healthcare, one in every of the biggest health systems within the U.S. But as discussions got underway, he said they realized the organizations could come together in a more comprehensive manner. 

Commure already has an ambient documentation tool, but it surely makes a speciality of ambulatory and outpatient settings, while Augmedix’s offering makes a speciality of acute care settings. The businesses decided to bring the tools together to reduce the friction that may come from documenting separate pieces of a patient’s care.     

“You’ve to have documentation that covers your entire journey. It doesn’t just stop once they leave the [emergency department], after which restart again once they’re admitted into the hospital as an inpatient,” Krakaris said.”Today, there’s an entire massive, labor intensive step to attempt to bridge those two worlds.” 

Tandon said there’s plenty of noise within the AI scribe market, and he expects there can be segmentation between high-level scribes that automate easy tasks and enterprise-grade scribes that integrate more deeply with electronic health records and revenue cycles. 

Commure is all in favour of constructing the latter, and Krakaris said the actual value of the Augmedix acquisition will come from bringing the tools together and mixing the back-end technologies under one platform.

“It’s form of beneath the surface, it’s form of like an iceberg, but that is where the worth creation is,” he said. “It is not something that is very visible from the applying itself.” 

Within the short term, Commure and Augmedix are working through the relevant approvals and finalizing the cope with shareholders. Once that’s complete, they’ll begin planning latest deployments and approaching customers with the combined solution. 

The businesses are still understanding exactly what the acquisition will mean for the Augmedix brand, but it can likely look something like “Augmedix powered by Commure,” Tandon said. 

“If we do that integration well, and if we do our job well here, there can be a best at school product that really solves lots of these problems within the office, after which all of the tasks that occur after the patient’s gone as well,” he said. 

Read the complete release concerning the deal here.

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