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The UK has paved the best way for simple entry to weight-loss jabs by recommending prescriptions via on-line apps — making ready for the arrival of the brand new drug Wegovy.
The U.Ok.’s Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Excellence (NICE) has compiled steering on the usage of 4 weight-management packages that will allow customers to entry weight-loss medication.
By downloading certainly one of 4 apps — Liva, Oviva, Roczen and Second Nature — sufferers can join with Nationwide Well being Service specialists who can present help in addition to remedy.
It is going to “significantly profit individuals who don’t have entry to specialist weight-management companies of their space or who’re on a ready record so are usually not at the moment supported by a specialist weight-management program,” NICE states.
The applied sciences might also “cut back the demand on face-to-face specialist weight administration packages,” NICE provides in its steering, releasing sources and probably lowering ready instances.
The NHS is struggling to deal with record-high ready lists exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — nearing 7.6 million in June — and is chronically understaffed. Sufferers in some areas are routinely ready 4 weeks for a GP appointment.
In the meantime, in England alone, some 30 % of adults are overweight and 38 % are obese, based on a 2021 well being survey. Weight problems will increase the danger of quite a few different ailments, together with diabetes, heart problems and most cancers.
Providing weight-management therapies by way of these apps might “enhance entry to medicine,” NICE says in its draft steering.
The method has been welcomed by weight problems professional Carel le Roux, a professor of metabolic drugs at Ulster College, Northern Eire.
“We should always use know-how the place doable to take away the boundaries for sufferers with the illness of weight problems to obtain continual care,” le Roux stated by way of electronic mail.
Pre-empting demand
Since being authorized for weight reduction final yr, demand for Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy has soared, propelled by social media influencers.
But, the corporate has launched in solely 4 nations — Denmark, Norway, Germany and the Unite States — and is limiting the variety of new sufferers who can begin remedy. That’s as a result of shares are restricted whereas manufacturing is progressively ramping up, and sufferers who begin Wegovy must steadily improve the dose over a 16-week interval and stay on weekly injections for as much as two years.
Novo has two medication authorized for weight reduction: Saxenda and Wegovy. Trial information confirmed these handled with Saxenda — which is already out there within the U.Ok. — misplaced between 5 and 10 % of their physique weight after 56 weeks. Newest drug Wegovy demonstrated some 15 % weight reduction over 68 weeks. However this drug will not be but out there.
“We don’t have a confirmed launch date for Wegovy (semaglutide injection) within the U.Ok.,” a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk informed POLITICO, including that they’re working to make Wegovy out there “as quickly as doable.”
The spokesperson stated the corporate would additionally reply to the NICE session on the usage of the apps to entry its medication. The steering is open for public suggestions till August 24.
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