O is for Obesity

With just over a month left until the end of year, we decided to bring together the biggest and best pharmaceutical news from over the last 12 months to make sure you’re up to date when it comes to our ever growing industry. An opportunity to look at how far we’ve come in our fight against the world’s deadliest and most widespread diseases, and how very far we still have to go in finding new drug targets and treatments against many more. From Antibiotics to Zika, drug discovery to regulatory approval, new treatments, better medicines, healthcare cuts and novel approaches – all to find solutions to the many unmet calls for aid seen around the globe, let European Pharmaceutical Review put you in the know.

O is for Obesity

Gelesis appoints new Chief Operating Officer in anticipation of obesity product launch. Gelesis, a biotechnology company focused on developing products to safely induce weight loss and improve glycaemic control, have appointed David Pass, PhD as Chief Operating Officer.

The European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) has issued a warning urging for action to tackle the regions rising obesity epidemic.

EASO, the organisation responsible for research into obesity in Europe, has warned that unless something is done quickly to tackle the region’s rising obesity epidemic, it will have a devastating effect on healthcare costs and productivity.

Three-year data presented at the European Obesity Summit (EOS 2016) show early response to Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda (liraglutide 3 mg) resulted in improvements in weight loss and cardiometabolic risk factors.

In the Phase IIIa SCALE trial, adults with prediabetes and obesity or who were overweight with comorbidities were randomised to receive Saxenda or placebo for 160 weeks, both as an adjunct to a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity. People treated with Saxenda who lost 5% or more of their body weight at 16 weeks (classified as ‘early responders’) demonstrated greater weight loss and improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors at week 160 compared with those who lost less than 5% of their body weight at 16 weeks (‘early non-responders’).

How Big Pharma’s money is affecting our health and our wallets

The European Commission (EC) has approved the expanded use of Novo Nordisk’s xultophy, a combination of a long-acting basal insulin (Tresiba [insulin degludec]) and a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist (Victoza [liraglutide]) in one pen, to treat adults with type 2 diabetes and moderate renal impairment (CrCL 30-59 mL/min).

Renal impairment is a challenging and common long-term complication of type 2 diabetes that requires frequent monitoring of blood glucose levels and kidney function. Depending on age, duration of diabetes and blood glucose control, up to 40% of people with type 2 diabetes will develop some degree of renal impairment.

A is for Antibiotics

B is for Biosimilars

C is for Cancer Drugs Fund

D is for Dementia

E is for Epilepsy

F is for Funding

G is for Gene

H is for Hepatitis C

I is for Immuno-oncology

J is for Joint Pain

K is for Kidney

L is for Lab Automation

M is for MRSA

N is for Nivolumab

Check back tomorrow for the next letter in our pharma alphabet!

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you so drop us a comment below and tell us your thoughts.

CALL FOR WRITERS

Is this your specialist subject? Are you a scientist, student or do you work in the pharmaceutical industry? If you’d like contribute an article to the website and/or become one of our expert writers, please do get in touch with Niamh Marriott