“Losing forty kilos, I didn’t think… I obviously hoped, but I didn’t think it was possible.” assures Natacha, who tested Wegovy, a drug against obesity. In a year and a half, this Lyonnaise, who weighed nearly 150 kilos, lost 40 kilos. This drug was approved by French health authorities on October 8, 2024, but Natacha was able to test it in advance, like around 8,000 other French patients.
Anti-obesity drugs are coming to market, with an estimated one billion people worldwide being obese. After the American health authorities, it is France’s turn to authorize two of them, eagerly awaited by patients and their doctors, two appetite suppressants, whose results are spectacular: Wegovy, therefore, and Mounjaro. “There are great results and it’s life-changing in the end.” explains Natacha.
“I took up sports again that I couldn’t do before, and even simple things like tying my shoelaces, getting dressed, washing myself… All that was very complicated. And now, I ‘gets there normally’
Wegovy is administered by injection into the stomach, once a week, with an injector pen which releases a molecule. This has a double effect: it slows gastric emptying and, at the same time, it sends a satiety signal to the brain. “For example, before, I could eat a pack of yogurts in one go and now, if I eat two yogurts, I have actually eaten too much. So we eat less and less often“, explains Natacha.
With Wegovy and Mounjaro, obese people can lose an average of 15% of their weight. Hope for Anne-Sophie Joly, president of the National Collective of Obese Associations (CNAO): “Overweight and obesity in France, there are 33 million people, and in the world, it is the fourth cause of mortality, and it is only constantly increasing. And I remind you that during Covid, we represented 47% of people in intensive care and 40% in the morgue“, she emphasizes.
But be careful, recalls Anne-Sophie Joly, these medications must be reserved for patients who suffer from obesity, because it is a chronic disease. “It’s not a lifestyle choice. I tell you very clearly: it is suffering on many levels.she insists. It really needs to be taken seriously. We are not influencers who will take medicine to fit into a dress. We are not there, we are on life expectancies“.
For several months in the United States, many influencers have been singing the praises of these drugs, but also stars, from billionaire Elon Musk to TV presenter Oprah Winfrey.
It should be remembered that these are medications, with side effects, the most common of which are nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. However, nothing to do with the Mediator misused in its time as an appetite suppressant, and which killed around 2,000 people in France.
As Mounjaro is still in the evaluation phase, health authorities have already decided to strictly regulate the prescription of the first drug approved for obesity, Wegovy. You need a body mass index (BMI) of more than 35, that is to say you must suffer from severe obesity, and the prescription must be written only by a doctor specializing in endocrinology-diabetology- nutrition.
“Losing a lot of weight, but having nutritional deficiencies or developing eating disorders, because you lost weight too quickly, too hard, without being supervised, that makes no senseexplains Professor Sébastien Czernichow*, head of the nutrition department at the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris. “Patients must benefit from comprehensive care: be monitored in terms of diet, do appropriate physical activity. You have to be able to lose weight but with support”, he insists.
“You need to be able to lose weight, but with support and without having negative consequences”
on franceinfo
With these medications, it is not just about losing pounds, but also about gaining better health. For Wegovy, a study shows that it reduces the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 20%, also reducing diabetes and hypertension. In all, 18 diseases are associated with obesity.
These almost miraculous drugs are a boon for the laboratories that manufacture them, facing a gigantic market. In 30 years, the number of obese adults worldwide has doubled, reaching almost one billion. In fact, Wegovy, for example, is expensive. In France, it costs around 300 euros per month. It is not reimbursed by Social Security, but could be reimbursed next year. In the United States, it is even sold for $1,300 per month.
All this offers “very good prospects“to the laboratories,” confides Etienne Tichit, general manager of Novo Nordisk France, the Danish laboratory which produces it. “Today, there are approximately a little over a million patients being treated for obesity.he explains.
“I think that, faced with the wave of obesity, we will certainly have increased treatment tenfold within a few years”
Etienne Tichit, general manager of Novo Nordisk Franceat franceinfo
On the stock market, the value of the Novo Nordisk laboratory has now exceeded Denmark’s GDP.
At a time when there is concern in France about the employment risks caused by Doliprane, which should pass into the hands of an American fund, it is quite the opposite for manufacturers of anti-obesity drugs. Novo Nordisk plans to double the production capacities of its French site in Chartres, inEure-et-Loir. The American Eli Lilly, which produces Mounjaro (still being examined by the French health authorities), plans to invest 160 million euros in its factory in Fegersheim, in Alsace.
Enough to be jealous of all the other pharmaceutical laboratories… Pfizer, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Roche and the others are now looking for anti-obesity drugs of the future, drugs that will be even more effective.
*Professor Sébastien Czernichow would like to point out that he has links of interest with the Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim laboratories, which produce anti-obesity molecules or carry out research on the subject.
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