A successful new weight loss pill created by the maker of Ozempic could be ready in 2026.
Pharmaceutical titan Novo Nordisk yesterday released promising first results for its experimental drug amicretin, showing patients could lose more than 13 percent of their weight after just 12 weeks.
By contrast, the innovative Wegovy slimming jab has been shown to help people lose up to six per cent in the same period.
A phase two drug trial will begin in the second half of the year and results are expected in early 2026, the company said.
It means the treatment, which will need to be subject to even broader testing, could be available to consumers soon after, pending the latest regulatory hurdles.
Pharmaceutical titan Novo Nordisk yesterday released promising first results for its experimental drug amicretin, showing patients could lose more than 13 percent of their weight after just 12 weeks. In contrast, the innovative Wegovy slimming vaccine has been shown to help people lose up to six percent in the same period.
Amycretin is similar to Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic.
It targets the same hormone glucagon-like peptide 1, which regulates appetite and feelings of satiety.
In addition, it stimulates another called amylin that also reduces hunger and slows down stomach emptying.
The results showed that the drug also appeared to be safe and well tolerated among the 16 people who took it for three months and whose average weight at the start of the trial was 14 (196 pounds).
The rate at which people lost weight on amicretin far exceeded the amount of time it took Wegovy and Ozempic patients to lose that amount in the trials: 68 weeks.
The side effects experienced were also in line with its other GLP-1 medications, Novo Nordisk said.
These commonly include gastrointestinal problems such as nausea, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea.
Martin Holst Lange, head of development at Novo Nordisk, anticipated that the pill could be available to consumers “within this decade.”
“I never commit to deadlines, but I would feel very comfortable saying at least within this decade,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which monitors the safety of medicines used in Britain, said it was aware of the trial results.
Julian Beach, acting executive director of healthcare quality and access at the MHRA, told MailOnline today: ‘We are aware of the clinical trial results shared by Novo Nordisk on the weight loss drug amicretin.
“We will monitor the results and review any submissions about the indications outlined in the findings, if they are sent to us.”
Katharine Jenner, director of The Obesity Health Alliance, said the trial results “give great hope to those who cannot control their weight due to many complex factors.”
She told MailOnline: ‘Obesity is a chronic, recurring condition with many causes. Drugs alone will not be the answer to the extremely high levels of excess weight in the UK.
‘We need to take action to ensure that as few people as possible need medicines like these.
‘It is essential that we address the root causes of obesity, such as the flood of unhealthy foods and drinks that are constantly marketed and promoted, so that we are not treating people and then returning them to the conditions that made them sick. ‘
Yesterday, Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said the obesity market was “a tremendous lead.”
Analysts predict it could be worth £70 billion ($90 billion) in the coming years.
The results propelled Novo Nordisk to the 12th most valuable company, with a valuation of 440 billion pounds ($566 billion), surpassing that of Tesla and Visa.
Novo Nordisk shares rose 8 percent on Thursday in Copenhagen, hitting a record high after revealing the first results of a study on an obesity drug in pill form.
Participants in the trial lost more than 13 percent of their body weight in just three months, a rate that far exceeds the time it takes for Wegovy to take effect.
Novo Nordisk also said it would continue working on another treatment, CagriSema.
It is a combination therapy that contains semaglutide to target GLP-1, as well as a drug called cagrilintide, an analog of the hunger-fighting compound amylin.
It comes as health experts last month urged Britons not to rely on weight loss jabs as a quick fix to solve the crisis in the same meeting with Lords, warning they are “not the answer” and “inevitably will cause problems in the future.
Henry Dimbleby, the Government’s former food tsar, told the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee: “I fear what will happen, which has all sorts of negative connotations, is that if action is not taken to improve the food system, They will drug us more and more to get out of the problem.
“We will end up, like you, with 30 percent of the population taking antidepressants, with 30 percent of the population taking diet-suppressing medications, and they will shift profits from the food companies to the pharmaceutical companies.”
Ozempic is currently only available on the NHS as a treatment to control blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
Its spectacular slimming effects led doctors and pharmacists to distribute it “off label” to people who want to lose weight.
However, health chiefs urged against it due to supply problems, warning it would put the lives of diabetics at risk.
Wegovy was approved earlier this year, specifically for weight loss.
A month’s supply is available privately from the likes of Boots and Superdrug for around £200. The eligibility criteria for people wanting to get the medicine on the NHS are strict.
The growing obesity epidemic in the UK has been blamed on a lack of exercise, combined with unhealthy diets.
The latest NHS data shows that 26 per cent of adults in England are obese and a further 38 per cent are overweight but not obese.