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Anti-obesity drug Semaglutide Approved by FDA After Demonstrating Efficacy in Teens

On December 23, the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk published in a press release that its drug Wegovy® (semaglutide) has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obesity in adolescents over 12 years of age. The drug had been approved for adults in 2021 and in 2017 for diabetes management.

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Semaglutide works by mimicking the hormone called peptide, similar to glucagon-1 (GLP-1), which acts in the brain in areas that regulate appetite and food intake.

The results of the study that showed efficacy in adolescents have recently been published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine; the study included 201 participants over the age of 12, who showed a 16% decrease in body mass index in the group that received the asset compared to an increase of 0.6% in those who received placebo.

The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents reported from 2007 to 2020 by the CDC is 14.7 million in the United States, and Novo Nordisk is committed to ensuring doses of the drug are available as soon as possible.

Novo Nordisk is a health industry in the biotechnology sector founded in 1923 based in Denmark, has more than 52,600 full-time employees, its shares closed on December 23, 2022 at $ 134, $ 27 more than the same day in 2021.

Dr. Carmen de la Rocha

Director of Research and Development at Drox Health Science. PhD in Biotechnology, Master in Biochemical Engineering. Member of the National System of Researchers level I.

Sources

1. Childhood Obesity Facts, Overweight & Obesity, CDC. (Accessed: January 10, 2023). Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

2. Novo Nordisk; Press release (Dec., 2022). FDA approves once-weekly Wegovy® injection for the treatment of obesity in teens aged 12 years and older. (Accessed: January 10, 2023). [Press Release] Available at: https://www.novonordisk-us.com/media/news-archive/news-details.html?id=151389

3. Novo Nordisk A/S company Profile & Facts (2023) (Accessed: January 10, 2023). Available at: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVO/profile?p=NVO

4. Weghuber, D., et al. (2022). Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adolescents with Obesity. The New Englandjournalofmedicine,387(24), 2245–2257. (Accessed: January 10, 2023). Available at: https://doi. org/10.1056/NEJMoa2208601

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