Celebrity use of a type 2 diabetes drug to lose weight has sparked both Return And Attractiveness Last year’s Oscars. As this year’s celebration approaches Sunday night, the maker of a competing drug in the Ozympic division has a message for those trying to use the drug for cosmetic reasons to cut back quickly: These are not for you.
“Some people have used drugs that were never meant for them,” begins an ad for drugmaker Eli Lilly in “Big Night,” which begins on TV this weekend. “For the little dress or tax, for the big night, for vanity.”
The red carpet is rolled out; Flash of paparazzi cameras.
“That’s not the point,” the voiceover continues, as the images shift from a dramatic event to a woman in casual clothes riding public transportation. “People whose health is affected by obesity are the reason we’re working on these drugs. It’s important who gets them.”
The ad doesn’t specifically mention Lilly’s drugs — Zepboden for obesity and Munjaro for diabetes — and so it doesn’t include the copious amounts of safety information American TV viewers are used to at the end of pharmaceutical commercials.
But it conveys the message Lily is trying to convey Transfer From the beginning of this year.
CEO David Ricks told , “We have a vision for how these drugs are used.” “These drugs were created for people with serious health problems; they weren’t created just to make a celebrity look a little better.
Zepbound and Mounjaro belong to a class of drugs commonly called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which includes Novo Nordisk’s Ozympic and its sister drug Wegovy. Both classes of drugs mimic a hormone known as GLP-1, which suppresses appetite, makes people feel fuller for longer, and affects insulin secretion. Lilly’s drugs mimic the second hormone involved in those processes, GIP.
Ozympic and Munjaro are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for diabetes, while Wegovi and Zipbone are approved for weight management. in Clinical ExperimentsThey have been shown to help people lose an average of 15% to 20% or more of their body weight, and guidelines for their use are based around patients’ body mass index.
They are. They pointed out For people who have a BMI of 30 or more, they are considered to have Excessive obesityor those with a BMI of 27 – overweight – or higher and at least one “weight-related” health condition such as high blood pressure or cholesterol.
“It’s a disease,” Ricks said. “It’s a metabolic disorder that won’t go away without serious treatment for most people. …So I don’t think we’re going to make much progress on this topic that affects over 100 million Americans; Unless we treat it as a medical condition like high blood pressure or arrhythmia or something else.
Ricks cites three reasons his company tries to draw lines on who should get these drugs: insurance coverage, shortages, and the people they study.
“We only studied overweight or obese populations, and it focused on people who were obese,” he said. “We can’t talk about the benefits and risks outside of the public, so we think it’s only responsible to shine the light here, where the drug is most needed.”
Will Lilly study the drug for cosmetic weight loss?
“It’s not on our roadmap right now,” Ricks said. “It’s not really our mission. I think people come to work at my company and want to solve serious health problems, not just make money in health care.
Ricks also pointed out that the drugs are already in short supply and cited the World Health Organization reported Last week, more than 1 billion people in the world were obese.
“We are a long way from being able to provide these drugs to the one billion people who are obese, let alone those who want to lose weight,” Ricks said. “So we have to prioritize, and that’s what this announcement is about, prioritizing those who need it the most.”
Lilly didn’t say how many people might be abusing the drug, but in 2016, Short supply People with type 2 diabetes in both groups have trouble getting their medications. Novo Nordisk had to do it limitation Wegovy’s low starting dose can therefore continue to be offered to patients already at high maintenance doses.
Both are companies. Racing To increase production, build and acquire manufacturing plants, but the CEO of Novo Nordisk They spoke It could take years to catch up to last year. Desire.
And it’s insurance coverage. the poorEspecially for weight loss drugs. cost between 960 dollars And 1,350 dollars per month before insurance or discounts, and “half of the obese people in America” don’t have insurance coverage for them, Ricks said – including those who are covered. MedicarePrevents weight loss medication coverage.
“This is wrong on our part,” he told . “We call on all decision makers in the health care payment world, from the federal government, who does not reimburse these costs in Medicare, to reconsider that position – obesity is a serious disease that leads to other serious conditions. And for many people, it cannot be solved without medicine.
Pressed on whether Lilly should lower the price of its drugs to increase access, Ricks pointed to discount programs the company has put in place to offer the drug at half off.
But, he said, “It’s not the same as insurance. And again, we don’t think a health product we’ve developed for a serious medical condition should be uninsured. We will not accept this otherwise.
The way obesity is viewed is the subject of Lilly’s second new ad, twice as long as “Big Night,” called “Shame.”
“It appeared to me when I was young and I remained like a shadow, living in glimpses of loved ones and strangers, always reminding me of the value of my body,” Voiceover says. “But what good is shame when it comes to health? Health is not about what weight we lose; It’s about everything the body can find.
Ricks said the announcement was a result of the team’s years of experience. with obese people, and the goal is to create more compassion for them, especially in the health care system.
Lilly said ads that are part of a Series It started this year focusing on different. Diseases — including Alzheimer’s, for which the company expects the FDA to approve a new drug this month — will run nationwide starting this weekend.
During the Oscars’ “big night,” will the counselors’ celebrities and other people who use the drug for “vanity” air? Ricks said he didn’t know. However, he pointed out that the week leading up to that is focused around advocacy World obesity day On March 4 and Obesity Care Week.
“It’s also a big award show at the weekend, the Oscars,” he said. “And we’re using that time to combine those two ideas, which is a serious problem with serious medicine.”
“For you know, we need to use language to talk about the situation more than how much you’re getting into or whatever,” Ricks said. “Not for that.”