By Bhanvi Satija and Christy Santhosh<\/p>\n
June 11 (Reuters) – Britain’s medicine regulator approved Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss pill on Thursday, making the UK the first market in Europe where patients \u200ccan access the oral treatment and boosting the Danish drugmaker as it battles U.S. \u200crival Eli Lilly.<\/p>\n
The approval gives more than 10 million people with obesity in the UK an alternative to injections as \u200bdrugmakers race to expand use of the medicines that have transformed weight-loss treatment and reshaped the global pharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n
The pill contains semaglutide, the same active ingredient as Novo’s blockbuster injectable drugs Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic for diabetes.<\/p>\n
Novo received early approval in the United States for its weight-loss pill \u200cand launched there this year. Lilly \u2060quickly followed with its oral medication, Foundayo, after receiving regulatory clearance in April.<\/p>\n
Both drugmakers believe pills could appeal to patients reluctant to use injections as the \u2060companies compete in the rapidly growing obesity drug market. Analysts expect this market to cross $100 billion in revenue by 2030.<\/p>\n
“For some people, an oral formulation may make treatment more acceptable than injectable therapies,” said \u200bDr Marie \u200bSpreckley of the University of Cambridge, adding the tablet \u200bmust be taken on an empty \u200cstomach and 30 minutes before eating.<\/p>\n
“The key questions now relate to access, uptake, long-term adherence, and how best to integrate this treatment into routine care pathways,” she said.<\/p>\n
PRIVATE-PAY MARKET<\/p>\n
About 2.4 million people in the UK used GLP-1 drugs last year. Only about 200,000 of them accessed treatment through the state-run National Health Service, according to data from IQVIA. The rest obtained them privately, where the \u200cdrugs can cost hundreds of pounds a month.<\/p>\n
Britain’s National Institute \u200bfor Health and Care Excellence must assess the pill \u200bbefore it can become available on the \u200bNHS.<\/p>\n
Until then, patients can access the Wegovy pill through private providers, which will \u200ccontrol its price, Novo said.<\/p>\n
A NICE spokesperson \u200bsaid the agency was \u200bin active discussions with Novo, but that the company must still make an evidence submission for the institute to make a recommendation.<\/p>\n
“Oral GLP-1s will bring more people into treatment and \u200bgive patients greater choice, but \u200cthey are not silver bullets,” said Danielle Brightman, clinical director at UK-based private digital \u200bhealthcare platform Numan.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru, Bhanvi Satija and Maggie Fick in \u200bLondon; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Cynthia Osterman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Bhanvi Satija and Christy Santhosh June 11 (Reuters) – Britain’s medicine regulator approved Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss pill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[19839,276,272,30891,2836,280],"class_list":["post-105938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novo-nordisk","tag-britain","tag-eli-lilly","tag-novo-nordisk","tag-oral-treatment","tag-patients","tag-weight-loss"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116733625431442451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}