A box of Ozempic and contents sit on a table in Dudley, North Tyneside, Britain, October 31, 2023.
George Frey | Reuters
Novo Nordisk investors appeared unperturbed Thursday by a critical Harvard report that linked weight reduction drugs to a rare eye condition.
Semaglutide, which is present in weight reduction drugs including Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, may be related to an increased risk of a rare eye disease, in keeping with a study carried out by Harvard Medical School.
Analysts said the study results were “hardly a game-changer,” nevertheless. Shares within the Danish pharmaceutical company’s shares were little modified on Thursday, dipping in early morning trade before rising 0.1% as of 11:17 a.m. London time.
The Harvard report found that patients with type 2 diabetes or obesity, who’re prescribed semaglutide, have an increased risk of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) — a condition which may result in lack of vision in a single eye. Patients were more prone to be diagnosed with the attention condition in comparison with patients who weren’t prescribed the load loss drugs, the study found.
While the research paper does suggest “some correlation” with a rare ocular event, the standard of the evidence is “vey low, the error bars are very wide,” in keeping with Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Papadakis.
The worst case scenario would likely be an extra update to the label warning section of the drugs, which is “hardly a game-changer,” said Papadakis.
He added that Deutsche Bank generally regards semaglutide medications as “one of the crucial derisked therapeutic classes in industry history from a security perspective.”
A spokesperson from Novo Nordisk said the optic nerve disease NAION will not be an “opposed drug response for the marketed formulations of semaglutide” as per the approved labels. They added that there are “key methodological limitations” to the study equivalent to the “small number of individuals” with type 2 diabetes or obesity that were exposed to semaglutide and were included within the trial.
“Patient safety is a top priority for Novo Nordisk, and we take all reports about opposed events from use of our medicines very seriously,” the spokesperson said.
Popularity for the blockbuster drugs has seen Novo Nordisk grow to turn out to be the most beneficial company in Europe, with a valuation larger than Denmark’s total gross domestic product last 12 months.
Wegovy has also been shown to have health advantages beyond shedding weight and regulating blood sugar. The Food and Drug Administration in March approved it to be used in reducing the chance of heart disease.
The drugs, nevertheless, have faced scrutiny after some patients reported experiencing stomach paralysis and suicidal ideation while taking them. A study carried out by researchers on the University of British Columbia noted an increased risk of bowel obstruction, a disorder where food is blocked from passing through the small or large intestine, and pancreatitis, or pancreas inflammation.
The labels for the drugs already include warnings about pancreatitis and certain types of bowel obstruction. A change in vision can also be listed as a possible side effect for each Ozempic and Wegovy.
The U.S. study, which was published on Wednesday, analysed data from 16,827 patients from December 2017 through to November last 12 months. The researchers noted that further study is required to evaluate whether semaglutide causes the attention condition.
CNBC’s Jenni Reid contributed to this report.
