Eli Lilly seeks FDA approval for diabetes drug to be used for weight loss

Publish date: 2024-07-26

WASHINGTON (TND) — Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly is pushing for FDA approval forTirzepatide, a medication used to help control blood sugar for type-2 diabetics, to be used for another purpose: weight loss.

According to a new study, which the drug-maker sponsored, subjects that took the medication, known under brand name asMounjaro, for 72-weeks lost 15.7% of their body weight when utilitzing it alongside diet and exercise.

Weight loss can be a struggle for people with diabetes, according to medical experts, who say Tirzepatide helps make you feel full longer.

Many experts are weighing in as Eli Lilly makes this push for this drug to get a new corner in the market.

"We have to be very careful," about these kinds of medications, according to Dr. Steve Heymsfield, a professor in the Metabolism and Body Composition Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University.

There’s literally an appetite for drugs like this in the population. Since almost half of Americans are obese, we know there’s that need for this, but we have to be very cautious with these drugs.

Some of that caution comes from the potential to see drugs like this abused by those in the general population seeking quick fixes for weight loss. Multiple reports, like this one from Boston-based public media station WGBH, note that the use of the diabetes medication Ozempic for weight loss has exploded amongst certain strata of the social media-and-celebrity influencer class.

This unintended use is so great that physicians are warning that they have been unable to get Ozempic, and now other medications like it, for their patients that need it.

We’ve had instances where patients have not been able to get some of their current medications for their diabetes, because there is a shortage of those due to the uptick of patients using this off label for weight loss," says Dr. Andrew Straw, associate professor of pharmacy practice at Cedarville University.

"This includes both Tirzepatide and Semaglutide, which is also being used in a similar fashion.”

Semaglutide, sold under the brand names of Ozepmic and Wegovy, is amother injection-drug used for adults with diabetes and obesity or excess weight as a long-term care option.

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