Liver disease is newest weight reduction drug use

Think a friend or colleague ought to be getting this article? Share this link with them to enroll.

Good afternoon! Drugmakers aren’t just racing to develop drugs that treat obesity. They’re also competing to expand the uses of those weight reduction treatments, including for a severe form of liver disease.

Some drugmakers – including the dominant players out there, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – have already demonstrated the drugs’ ability to assist patients shed unwanted kilos and regulate blood sugar.

Now, they aim to indicate the treatments can bring additional health advantages. Doing so could unlock much more revenue from the booming market, and expand the limited insurance coverage for those treatments, most of which cost near $1,000 per thirty days. 

The competition heated up on Monday after Denmark-based drugmaker Zealand Pharma and its partner Boehringer Ingelheim posted strong results from a mid-stage trial testing its drug, survodutide, in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, or MASH. That condition is characterised by excess fat buildup and inflammation within the liver and might result in liver scarring, or fibrosis. 

Survodutide, which helped obese patients or those with obesity lose as much as 19% of their weight in one other phase 2 trial, is just one in every of an extended list of medication that might eventually develop into treatments for MASH.

 An update to STAT’s obesity drug tracker on Monday shows that no less than 23 – or about one-fifth – of the 105 weight reduction drugs in development or available on the market are also being investigated for his or her ability to treat the condition. 

So, why are drugmakers specializing in this specific type of liver disease? For one, there are no medicines approved to directly goal MASH. The drugs being tested may not cure the condition, but their reach could possibly be large: Around 115 million people worldwide are affected by MASH, and an estimated 3% to five% of U.S. adults have the condition, in line with some studies. 

The brand new data underscores the potential for weight reduction drugs to assist. As much as 83% of trial participants treated with survodutide saw significant improvements of their disease with no worsening of liver scarring after 48 weeks, compared with 18.2% in a gaggle who received a placebo, in line with Zealand Pharma. 

Survodutide also met one in every of the second goals of the trial, which was showing a “statistically significant” improvement in liver scarring. There have been also no unexpected safety or tolerability issues amongst those that received the drug, even at higher doses. 

Riley Securities analyst Mayank Mamtani said the info “materially surpassed investor expectations,” and even appears to enhance upon mid-stage trial data that Eli Lilly released earlier this month. 

Around 74% of patients who received the very best dose of Eli Lilly’s drug, tirzepatide, became freed from MASH with no worsening of liver scarring after a yr. That compares with around 13% of those that received a placebo. 

It was less clear how much that drug reduced liver scarring, which was the second aim of the trial. Eli Lilly didn’t disclose whether tirzepatide met that goal, but the corporate said the drug’s effect on decreasing scarring was “clinically meaningful” across all dose sizes. 

Nonetheless, Jefferies analysts cautioned in a Monday note that Eli Lilly’s trial included patients with more severe types of liver scarring in comparison with Zealand Pharma’s study. Which will explain the differences in data. 

The 2 drugs work in a different way. Zealand Pharma’s treatment mimics a gut hormone called GLP-1, which suppresses appetite, however it also imitates one other hormone called glucagon. Meanwhile, Lilly’s tirzepatide targets GLP-1 and a distinct hormone called GIP.

It’s too early to say whether one drug is best than one other at treating MASH. It can likely take years before we see Eli Lilly and Zealand Pharma’s drugs available on the market as a fatty liver disease therapy.

Boehringer Ingelheim told Reuters on Monday that the corporate hopes survodutide will launch as a treatment for MASH or obesity in 2027 or 2028, contingent on favorable trial data. 

Full results from each Eli Lilly and Zealand Pharma’s mid-stage trials will probably be presented at a medical conference this yr. We also should wait for data from other drugmakers: Novo Nordisk is studying semaglutide, also generally known as Wegovy for weight reduction and Ozempic for diabetes, in a late-stage trial for treating MASH. 

But one biotech company will be the first to bring a successful MASH drug to market: The Food and Drug Administration is slated to determine whether to approve a medicine called resmetirom from Madrigal Pharmaceuticals on March 14.

It has been a rough week for Change Healthcare. 

The corporate, which offers solutions for payment and revenue cycle management, said its systems are down for a seventh straight day after parent company UnitedHealth Group disclosed that a “suspected nation-state associated” cybersecurity threat actor gained access to a part of its information technology network last week.