Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is no slouch when it comes to weight loss. The Danish-based company recently released preliminary data suggesting that its experimental drug amycretin can help people lose even more weight than its already blockbuster drug semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Even better, amycretin is taken as a pill, unlike the injections required for Ozempic and Wegovy.
Researchers presented the company’s data on amycertin at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes this week, which comes from a Phase I trial in people living with obesity. Those taking amycretin were found on average to lose 13.1% of their body weight over a 12-week period—much more than the average weight loss seen in those taking a placebo and at a pace to perhaps surpass the success seen with semaglutide.
For comparison, people taking high doses of semaglutide in clinical trials were found to lose about 6% of their body weight on average after three months and about 15% of body weight after six months. That raises the incredible possibility that people using amycretin can expect to lose 25% or more of their weight over the same period, an average weight loss rate unmatched by any current obesity medication and comparable to successful bariatric surgery.
“It’s almost like a miracle pill,” Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist and senior medical director in the Office of Population Health Management at Duke Health, told NBC News.
Novo Nordisk’s data has yet to be reviewed by outside experts, which is an important part of the scientific process. And it’s still only Phase I data, clearly designed only to tell us whether the drug is safe enough to be tested in humans, not to confirm its effectiveness. For that reason, the company reported that side effects seen with the drug were generally mild to moderate and comparable to those seen with semaglutide. The most common side effects with semaglutide are gastrointestinal, such as nausea and diarrhea, although these symptoms tend to subside over time.
The pharmacology behind amycretin supports the idea that it can beat semaglutide. Semaglutide mimics the gut hormone GLP-1, which helps regulate our blood sugar and hunger, among other things. But amycretin is designed to mimic both GLP-1 and another key hormone in our hunger and blood sugar control, amylin. Eli Lilly’s competing drug tirzepatide, sold under the names Mounjaro and Zepbound, uses a similar dual-action strategy (although GLP and the hormone GIP are used), and has been found to provide greater weight loss on average than semaglutide as well.
More data in humans confirming the efficacy and safety of amycreitin will be needed before it can reach the public. But this is just one of many promising future approaches to weight loss treatment being developed by Novo Nordisk and its competitors. One of the company’s candidates, CagriSema, combines three drugs that mimic our gut hormones, for example, with early results suggesting the same level of weight loss as predicted with amycretin.
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