FDA Approves New Obesity Drug That Will Compete With Wegovy

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved an obesity drug from the company Eli Lilly that will be a direct competitor to the wildly popular Wegovy.

The drug is called tirzepatide and will be sold under the name Zepbound. It joins a class of new drugs that are transforming weight loss and obesity, a condition that affects 100 million American adults and is linked to a spectrum of diseases including diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, liver disease, kidney disease and joint pain.

Patients taking tirzepatide lost a fifth of their body weight during a drug study when it was taken at the highest dose. That’s compared to Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, which delivered an average weight loss of 15 percent.

The FDA has approved Zepbound for people who are obese and for people who are overweight and have an obesity-related condition, such as heart disease.

Tirzepatide is already approved for diabetes under the brand name Mounjaro, where it competes with Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug semaglutide, better known as Ozempic. But until now, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, which is also based on semaglutide, was the only approved drug that could safely produce substantial weight loss in obese people alone.

In a press release, Dr. John Sharretts, director of the Division of Diabetes, Lipid Disorders and Obesity at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said: “In light of rising rates of obesity and overweight in the United States, the current approval addresses an unmet need. medical need.”