Emma Court

Obesity shots like Wegovy are already a cultural phenomenon. Now it’s looking like pill forms of the drugs from Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S are just as good at helping people lose weight, setting the stage for even more explosive growth in the years ahead.

Obesity shots like Wegovy are already a cultural phenomenon. Now it’s looking like pill forms of the drugs from Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S are just as good at helping people lose weight, setting the stage for even more explosive growth in the years ahead.

Saxenda will have limited availability through the end of the year, according to a notice posted Tuesday on a US Food and Drug Administration database.

Ozempic and Wegovy might save the 60-year-old company—if they don’t kill it first.

Obesity is among the world’s most common health conditions, but for years medicine has had few effective approaches to offer short of surgery. That’s why there’s been so much excitement about a new class of drugs that’s helping patients shed dozens of pounds at far lower risk; one of the treatments has been shown to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Drugmakers are racing to scale up production of the few medications approved so far and test new versions. Yet there are big hurdles that could keep

Obesity is among the world’s most common health conditions, but for years medicine has had few effective approaches to offer short of surgery. That’s why there’s been so much excitement about a new class of drugs that’s helping patients shed dozens of pounds at far lower risk. One of the treatments — Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy — has been shown to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Drugmakers are racing to scale up production of the few medications approved so far and test new versions. Yet there are b

Obesity is among the world’s most common health conditions, but for years medicine has had few effective approaches to offer short of surgery. That’s why there’s been so much excitement about a new class of drugs that’s helping patients shed dozens of pounds at far lower risk.

The rise of fentanyl, an anesthetic turned street drug, has brought on the most dangerous phase yet in the decades-long US opioid epidemic, driving record rates of fatal overdoses even higher. Fentanyl is claiming the lives not just of people with an opiate addiction but also users of cocaine, methamphetamines and other drugs to which it’s added. Its consumption spiraled upward during the Covid-19 pandemic. And the threat keeps evolving: Dealers have begun mixing fentanyl with xylazine, a cheap

The success of these drugs has set off a boom in research: There are now more than 50 anti-obesity drugs in clinical development from about 40 companies.

Obesity is among the world’s most common health conditions, but for years medicine had few effective approaches to offer short of surgery. That’s why there’s been so much excitement about a new class of drugs that’s helping patients shed dozens of pounds at far lower risk — and generating billions in revenue for pharmaceutical companies. The mania over these drugs is drawing responses from businesses as varied as airlines, dialysis centers and big box chains, sending stock markets into a frenzy.