How Does the Complexity of Obesity Impact the Effectiveness of GLP-1s?

GLP-1 drugs continue to dominate the pharmaceutical landscape. The medication is popular for its weight loss applications, and major pharmaceutical companies continue to introduce new versions of these medications. In late March, FDA approved a high dose injectable version of Wegovy through its accelerated approval program. Around the same time, Novo Nordisk announced a new multi-month subscription program for Wegovy for telehealth providers.

Clearly, the drugs are still popular. However, new data collected by Phenomix and the Mayo Clinic suggests that patients seeking the drug may not be fully aware of how the medication works and what the side effects are.

Phenomix’s CEO Mark Bagnall spoke with Pharmaceutical Executive about this data and what the impact is on GLP-1 users.

Pharmaceutical Executive: How does the complexity of obesity impact the effectiveness of GLP-1s?
Mark Bagnall: This is one of the reasons we started Phenomix: the understanding that obesity is a very complex disease. The reason that people suffer from this disease varies, and the complexity of these is that there are many factors that contribute.

There four basic subtypes of obesity. The first we call hungry gut folks, who tend to snack between meals. The second are hungry brain folks, who tend to overeat at a single seating. The next category is emotional , who eat because of emotion. Last is slow burn, who just don't burn enough energy.

What that means is that we must think through how we customize therapies and interventions to each individual, and it may well be that a GLP-1 is not the right drug for you. Or it may well be that a GLP one is the right drug for you, but must be combined with resistance training, because resistance training and protein will enhance muscle mass as I take the GLP one.

What we do know through the work we're doing on the genetics of the disease is that it's far more complex than a single answer, a single intervention, a single drug, would solve for all the population.