Will the Ozempic “miracle” be the nightmare of health insurers?

“Everything we test has a positive effect!” Bernard Thorens, a diabetes specialist at the Integrative Genomics Center at the University of Lausanne, is the man who discovered the GLP-1 receptor in the 1990s – in other words, the receptor that all drugs that will be targeted by later named analogues of GLP-1, from Ozempic to Wégovy. Today, he cannot believe the multiplicity of positive effects that we have discovered for these molecules. He talks about “miracle drug”masking his enthusiasm as best he could behind the strict conditional.

He is not the only one. Recently, in September 2024, the French magazine Science and Future was on the front page “the miracle molecule”. There are countless articles presenting the results of clinical studies, sometimes quite preliminary, to affirm that GLP-1 analogues could cure all diseases and all organs, from the liver to the kidneys via the brain – and even the old age…

The price of buzz

This is naturally exaggerated. And we must recognize that there is just as much media buzz to draw attention to this or that risk identified by a new scientific article, including from a few extremely rare cases which also need to be confirmed. For example, despite all the precautions taken by the authors, a study by American ophthalmologists published in July 2024 showing a possible link between semaglutide (active ingredient in Ozempic) and a very rare eye disease becomes “Ozempic could make you blind” on a Canadian and another Swiss news site…

The price of glory? No doubt, but it is also partly the result of a strategy of pharmaceutical laboratories. They are increasing the number of large phase 3 and 4 clinical trials, in order to find new indications and positive effects likely to expand the market for these molecules. This would also make it possible to extend the validity of patents – those protecting GLP-1 marketed today for diabetes and obesity will expire between 2026 and 2036 – and to convince health insurers to reimburse better than they do today. today.

This strategy is obvious but, in itself, it does not mean that GLP-1 analogues do not have these multiple effects that are attributed to them. We will try to see clearly.