THE AMERICAN
MEDICAL ASSOCIATION VOTED TO CLASSIFY OBESITY
AS A DISEASE. IN ONE DAY, 78
MILLION AMERICAN ADULTS AND 12 MILLION AMERICAN CHILDREN WERE DEEMED TO HAVE A
MEDICAL CONDITION THAT NEEDS TREATMENT. THE DECISION WAS CONTROVERSIAL TO SAY
THE LEAST.
Now seeing obesity as a disease lead to approving
certain drugs for it treatment by FDA,as reported by NEW YORK TIMES
New Drug to Treat Obesity Gains Approval by F.D.A.
CONTRAVE
Can the third time be the charm for weight loss pills?
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the
third new prescription drug for obesity since
2012. The drug, called Contrave, was developed by Orexigen Therapeutics, a
small company based in San Diego, and will be marketed by Takeda Pharmaceutical
of Japan.
About one-third of American adults are obese, so a
successful weight loss drug could potentially have huge sales. Doctors
specializing in obesity say there is a big need for weight loss approaches that
go beyond diet and exercise but are not as drastic as surgery.
Yet two drugs approved in 2012 — the first new
prescription obesity drugs in 13 years — have had disappointing sales. Those
drugs are Qsymia, which is sold by Vivus, and Belviq, which is from Arena
Pharmaceuticals and Eisai.
Analysts, doctors and company
executives say one reason the drugs have struggled is that many doctors and
many obese people do not think of obesity as a disease to be treated by
medicine.
Medicare, most
state Medicaid programs
and some commercial insurers do not pay for the drugs. Doctors and patients are
cautious about safety because of problems with previous weight loss drugs. And
for many people, the weight loss is modest.
In a clinical trial involving patients without diabetes,
those who took Contrave had an average weight loss of 4.1 percent beyond those
receiving a placebo. About 42 percent of those getting Contrave lost at least 5
percent of their weight compared with 17 percent of patients in the placebo
group.
The F.D.A. declined to approve Contrave in 2011 because
there were signs that it slightly raised patients’ pulse rates and blood
pressure.
Orexigen then conducted a study with about 9,000 patients
to demonstrate that the drug did not raise the risk of heart attacks.
That study is continuing, but interim
results have apparently satisfied the regulators.
Orexigen declined to comment before
an investor call scheduled for Thursday morning.
Contrave is a combination of two existing generic drugs in
an extended-release formulation. One is naltrexone, which is used to treat
alcohol and opioid dependence. The other is bupropion, which was approved under
the name Wellbutrin to treat depression
and under the name Zyban to help people quit
smoking.
Contrave’s label has a boxed warning about the risk of
suicidal thoughts, which is also on bupropion and other antidepressants.
On Thursday, an advisory committee to the F.D.A. will
discuss another possible new obesity drug, liraglutide, from Novo Nordisk. The
drug is already sold under the name Victoza as a treatment for diabetes. Novo
is proposing a higher dose for use in treating obesity.
Craig M. Audet, a senior vice president at Arena, welcomed
the approval of Contrave, saying that having more sales representatives
pitching obesity drugs, even rival ones, would increase the market.
“More is better here,” he said. With sales of obesity
drugs still low, he said, “it’s much easier to grow the market than try to take
market share from somebody.”
WHAT IS LEFT FOR BUYERS OF THIS DRUGS IS TO THINK
OF ITS SAFETY TO HUMAN IN THE LONG RUN,AS A LOT OF SYNTHETIC DRUGS COMES
WITH SERIOUS
SIDE EFFECTS.WE INSIST ON APPLYING A NATURAL PRODUCT THAT HAS NO SIDE
EFFECT,YES IT MIGHT BE SLOW IN YIELDING RESULT,BUT DEFINITELY THE RESULT MUST
COME WITH TIME,SO SOUND,SAFE AND HEALTHY.
TE DIVINA TEA IS NATURAL SLIMMING PRODUCT .
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