Patients struggling with obesity are more likely to use newer blockbuster weight loss drugs past the one-year mark compared to older medications, a recent study suggests.
Research conducted by the Cleveland Clinic and published in Obesity last week has pointed to newer weight loss drugs being a popular long-term treatment plan for those struggling with obesity. When compared to the use of older weight loss drugs, such as Contrave or Qsymia, the takers of new semaglutide injectables like Ozempic or Wegovy were three times more likely to be still taking it after one year.
More specifically, the team at the Cleveland Clinic looked at 1,911 obese patients who filed prescriptions for weight loss drugs between 2015 and 2022. While 44% were still taking these medications after three months, this number dropped to just 19% after one year. Discontinuation was followed by weight gain and the reversal of cardiovascular health gains in most cases.
While 10% of the patients still taking weight loss medications one year on were on Contrave, 40% were on semaglutide. These results were a surprise, as explained by Hamlet Gasoyan, PhD, the study’s lead author.
“We were expecting to see that individuals receiving novel AOM (anti-obesity medication) agents and those experiencing greater 6-month weight loss would be more likely to continue with their AOM treatment at one year, but we did not expect to see such a large difference in later-term persistence between semaglutide and the older-generation AOMs,” Gasovan told Medical News Today.
Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues faced by Americans today, as extensively covered in The Dallas Express. Nearly 100 million U.S. adults and around 15 million children are considered clinically obese. Being clinically obese heightens the risk of developing other serious health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer, according to Dignity Health.
New weight loss drugs have been shown to be effective despite having been originally developed to manage blood glucose levels in diabetes patients. The active ingredient semaglutide imitates GLP-1, a hormone normally released when food is consumed. This helps curb a person’s appetite and slows the passage of food through the digestive tract.
Over the past few years, the off-label use of these medications has transitioned into an official one, with the FDA recently approving Eli Lilly’s Zepbound for the treatment of obesity.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, the leading medical experts in the field of obesity have been actively promoting the long-term use of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. They consider obesity to be a chronic condition and have been active in calling for these treatment plans to be covered by health insurers since they are currently very expensive.
While the older weight loss drugs Contrave and Qsymia cost roughly $212 and $160 per month, respectively, Ozempic costs roughly $800, and Wegovy can set a person back $1,300.
Diabetes patients tend to have GLP-1 weight loss drugs covered by their insurance packages, yet this isn’t usually the case for obese individuals who are not clinically diagnosed with diabetes.
“Drugmakers of some of these medications have savings programs or coupons for commercially insured individuals which can reduce the patient’s out-of-pocket payments, but these are generally limited to 12 months or less,” Gasovan said. “Most state Medicaid programs, as well as Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, do not cover AOMs.”
The research team aims to look further into the role insurance plays in the continuation of weight loss drug treatment by patients struggling with obesity.
“Our findings also indicate that there is more work to be done to address the barriers to continued use of AOMs. … To this end, we plan to examine the role of specific insurance design features in continuous access to AOM as well as interventions to help increase persistence in the future,” explained Gasovan.
