Mounjaro from the American laboratory Eli Lilly, which belongs to the new generation of anti-obesity treatments, is now marketed in France, health authorities announced on Wednesday, a few weeks after the emblematic Wegovy from Novo Nordisk.
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“The drug Mounjaro – tirzepatide – has been marketed since November 2024,” said the National Medicines Agency (ANSM) in a press release, noting conditions just as strict as those in force for Wegovy, based on the semaglutide molecule, which also contains the anti-diabetic Ozempic.
These treatments, as well as Saxenda (liraglutide) also developed by Novo Nordisk, are part of the GLP-1 agonist family.
Initially developed against diabetes, they have given unprecedented results in helping to lose weight and are hailed by specialists as a possible therapeutic revolution, even if concerns remain about their side effects and the risk of seeing them taken outside the any medical check-up.
In this context, the arrival of Mounjaro is under the same conditions as Wegovy, marketed since October: without reimbursement and under very strict prescription conditions.
They can only be prescribed by certain specialists, only for patients with marked obesity, and only when a change in diet alone has not been sufficient to achieve weight loss.
These conditions correspond to the recommendations of the High Authority for Health (HAS) which was also not able to determine whether Wegovy or Mounjaro should be favored in the treatment of obesity.
The HAS has also recommended the reimbursement of these drugs in these specific indications, but it is currently awaiting negotiations initiated by the laboratories to set their final price. However, Wegovy is offered until 2025 to a few thousand patients who had benefited from it as part of an experiment.
Mounjaro was particularly exposed in the media in the United Kingdom where the government signed a partnership worth several hundred million pounds with Eli Lilly with the aim of promoting access to this treatment, and with the stated objective that overweight people can “return to work”.
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