Daily weight loss pill could help millions avoid obesity

A daily weight loss pill could help millions of people avoid needing a raft of other drugs for conditions such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, an expert has predicted. A tablet form of GLP-1 medication, known as orforglipron, is being reviewed by the UK medicines regulator. Dr Louis Aronne, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, USA, told an international conference the new tablet could be “a pill for life”.

He suggested it could one day be prescribed when people first become overweight to prevent them from becoming obese and developing serious health consequences. Dr Aronne said: “The beauty of treating obesity is you are treating all of these things; you treat the glucose, treat the lipids, treat the blood pressure, all by treating the obesity.

“If we could treat obesity effectively, we wouldn’t need to treat all of the other cardio-metabolic risk factors and it could be highly cost effective.

“And I think we are finally getting to the point where we have drugs that are efficacious enough that this is going to become a reality.”

Dr Aronne was presenting data at the European Congress on Obesity in Istanbul from a trial involving 376 US patients who had used weight loss jabs.

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, found that many were able to maintain their weight loss after switching to the pill.

Those who had been on tirzepatide and moved onto orforglipron typically maintained 74.7% of their weight loss after a year, compared with 49.2% taking a placebo.

Some 79.3% of former semaglutide users also maintained their weight loss compared to 37.6% in a placebo group.

Dr Aronne said the pills, made by pharmaceutical giant Lilly, were far less expensive to distribute than jabs, which have to be refrigerated.

The lowest dose of orforglipron is sold for around $149 per month in the US, roughly half the price of the lowest dose of weight loss jab mounjaro.

Dr Aronne said the pills could be the answer to a question many patients ask — how will I keep the weight off long-term when I stop using jabs?

And he argued they could be used more widely to prevent people becoming obese, adding: “The average patient that we see in our clinics has a BMI of 38, is on seven medications and has sleep apnoea.

“What would happen if you started treating people with a BMI of 25 or 27 and they never got to that? I think that the major use of this is going to be in people who are new to being treated, they haven’t been treated before.

“Personally I think people at the lower end of the weight spectrum, not people with severe obesity, will be treated with these kinds of things.”

Jason Murphy, head of pharmacy and weight loss expert at Chemist 4U, said the pills could benefit people who are uncomfortable with injecting themselves or feel shame about using jabs.

He added: “The introduction of next generation weight loss pills to the public will be game-changing for those looking to lose weight. In recent years we’ve seen that weight loss injections are incredibly effective for those living with obesity.

“This latest research shows that in the near future, we could have millions more people accessing weight loss drugs than ever before, as pills reshape the way we tackle obesity as a nation.

“With a number of weight loss pills set to be released over the next year, alongside very encouraging uptake already in the US, it’s incredibly likely that we see the number of people taking weight loss drugs go way beyond the current 2.5 million people currently doing so in Britain.”

Commenting on Dr Aronne's study, Dr Marie Spreckley, research programme manager at the University of Cambridge, said: “Many people do not want to remain on injectable therapy indefinitely due to treatment burden, convenience, travel, storage requirements, cost, or personal preference.

“The possibility of transitioning to an oral therapy while maintaining a substantial proportion of the previously achieved weight reduction could therefore represent an important additional option."