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The “skinny jab” Wegovy may be about to get more potent – after a trial found a triple-strength dose leads to 19 per cent weight loss, without unexpected side effects.
The result came from a trial of people using weekly 7.2 milligram injections of Wegovy – also known as semaglutide and Ozempic – for a year and a half.
The high dose did not cause new side effects, but did cause more of the known ones, such as nausea and diarrhoea.
“The results support a favourable benefit–risk profile,” said the scientists who ran the trial, led by Dr Sean Wharton at the University of Toronto.
Customers will have to wait for the higher dose to be green-lit by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Manufacturer Novo Nordisk told The i Paper it will apply for approval shortly. A decision is expected to take less than a year, especially as the medicine has already been approved at a lower dose.
Those who are heavier may need higher dose of Wegovy (Photo: Valeria Blanc/Getty) The current maximum dose of Wegovy is 2.4 milligrams, which leads to 15 per cent weight loss after a year, but then weight stays the same, even with continued use.
If approved, the higher dose could turn Wegovy into more of a rival for Mounjaro (tirzepatide), a more recent arrival that leads to about 20 per cent weight loss with the maximum dose.
Wegovy mimics a gut hormone that makes us feel full after eating, while Mounjaro mimics two such hormones.
About 1.5 million people in the UK are using one of these medicines, mostly buying them from online pharmacies. NHS access for weight-loss purposes has generally been limited to hospital obesity clinics, which have long waiting lists.
The plan is to roll out NHS use through GPs slowly, starting with people who are heaviest and whose health is most endangered by their weight.
Until recently, about 8 in ten online pharmacy customers have been buying Mounjaro, according to figures from Click2Pharmacy.
But the price of Mounjaro has recently shot up, from £122 to £330 per month, leading some to switch to Wegovy, which currently costs about £100 a month. The triple dose version of Wegovy is likely to be priced higher, though.
In the trial, people taking the triple dose had a higher rate of a side effect called dysaesthesia, where skin feels tingly. It affected 23 per cent of users compared with 6 per cent on the usual maximum Wegovy dose. But it was usually mild.
“For people that don’t respond as much to the 2.4 milligrams. It could be an option,” said Dr Laurence Dobbie, a GP and obesity researcher at King’s College London. “Some people may need a higher dose.”
The development of high-dose Wegovy suggests drug firms are fighting for an edge in what will soon be a crowded market place.
Several similar weight-loss medicines are set to arrive in the next few years, including tablets and injections that are even more potent. “I suspect one of the motivations for this trial is to see whether they can maintain some market share,” said Dr Simon Cork, physiologist at Anglia Ruskin University.
Mass use could really begin when Wegovy becomes available in generic form, likely to be in 2031. Then, its cost could come down from about £100 to £10 a month. The results were published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
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