Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug cuts risk of strokes and heart attacks

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Novo Nordisk’s best-selling obesity drug cuts the risk of heart attacks or strokes, according to the findings of a late-stage trial that sent shares in the Danish pharmaceutical company to a record high on Tuesday.

The study’s preliminary results found that patients who took the Wegovy drug had a 20 per cent lower chance of suffering a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke than those who received a placebo.

Novo Nordisk said that the trial, which enrolled 17,604 adults aged 45 or older, had achieved its primary objective by showing a statistically significant reduction in major cardiac events for patients who received 2.4mg of the drug semaglutide, the main ingredient in Wegovy, compared with those who took the placebo.

While many clinicians and researchers had assumed that Wegovy would automatically improve the health of patients’ hearts as they lost weight, the trial’s findings will be used by Novo Nordisk as it makes the case to health systems and insurers to buy the medicine.

Martin Holst Lange, executive vice-president for development at Novo Nordisk, said that until now there had been no approved weight management drug that also reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke.

It was a “landmark trial” that demonstrated the drug had “the potential to change how obesity is regarded and treated”, he said. 

Novo Nordisk expects to file for regulatory sign-off to expand what Wegovy is approved for use for, showing that it can reduce cardiac risks, in the US and the EU this year. The full results of the trial will be presented at a scientific conference later in 2023.

In the US, some health insurers have been reluctant to cover the drugs because of the sheer number of people who qualify to take them, with obesity affecting about 40 per cent of the population. 

So far, manufacturing problems have restricted supplies in the UK, but the country’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, has said the drugs will be paid for by the NHS, but restricted to those with higher BMIs and only for two years.

Nevertheless, investors’ confidence in the potential for Wegovy has transformed the fortunes of Novo Nordisk, making the Danish company Europe’s largest drugmaker by market capitalisation.

It does face competition from the US pharma group Eli Lilly. In late stage trials, Lilly’s obesity drug tirzepatide, branded as Mounjaro when used to treat diabetes, showed even more significant weight loss than Wegovy, although there have not been any head-to-head trials.

But Lilly does not yet have data that proves the link between using its drug for weight loss and a reduction in serious cardiac events.