The “miraculous weight loss drug” semaglutide, as a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, can stimulate insulin secretion and inhibit glucagon secretion to delay gastric emptying and reduce appetite, ultimately achieving the effect of lowering blood sugar and weight loss. Recently, a series of studies on the applicable diseases of semaglutide have shocked the outside world. So far, a series of research results have shown that in addition to the most basic effect of weight loss, it can also deal with symptoms such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, alcohol addiction, and dementia.
There were reports last week that semaglutide may be able to treat kidney disease, further pushing semaglutide to the status of a "panacea".
Novo Nordisk announced on October 10 that the Phase III clinical trial of semaglutide to treat kidney failure and chronic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes was stopped nearly a year early because an interim analysis showed that the trial was successful.
As of the close of trading last Friday (October 13), Novo Nordisk's stock price had increased by 9.82% since the release of the above-mentioned "Treatment of Kidney Disease Announcement". Its competitor, weight-loss drug manufacturer Eli Lilly, saw its share price rise 5.16% during the same period.
However, is semaglutide really so omnipotent? Recently, some experts in the medical field are cooling down the extremely hot weight loss drug market.
Dr. Kavita Patel, a medical writer, internist and White House health policy director under President Obama, believes that the latest data released by Novo Nordisk on Ozempic's ability to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease is one of the strongest supporting evidence for the drug's second use.
Ozempic is a weight loss drug produced by Novo Nordisk, and its active ingredient is semaglutide.
However, Patel pointed out,
"These trials are not nearly as reliable as the data we have on FLOW [Novo Nordisk's trial to evaluate the effects of semaglutide on the kidneys], the sleep apnea trial, the cardiovascular risk trial, the diabetes control trial," Dr. Patel said on a show last week. "We still have a long way to go."
The above-mentioned trials all used randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled superiority trials.
Patel believes that proving efficacy is just one of the major hurdles it will need to overcome before such a drug can be approved for use in conditions other than treating diabetes.
Typically, patients who choose to use GLP-1 drugs for weight management must pay out of pocket;
If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Ozempic for use in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, it could force insurance companies to expand coverage of the drug, Patel noted.
She also said, "We will see the final package of data, the data will be very convincing, it should be better than the data we have now, and it would be wrong to not cover it. I think it will be difficult for insurance companies to deal with this problem."
Meanwhile, Jared Holz, a healthcare industry strategist at Mizuho, expects that as more patients start taking GLP-1 drugs,
Holz pointed out that insurance companies may have a lot of rhetoric: "We understand, but we can't cover these drugs without seeing a benefit, which may be 10, 20, 30 years from now."
Now in the health care space, there are also clear investment value differences between Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies. Holz said, "We have never seen such a large valuation disconnect among peers, maybe not in the history of this industry."
However, Holz added,