Why Do Most Users Quit GLP-1 Drugs Like Ozempic (Semaglutide) Within Months?

"Why Do Most Users Quit GLP-1 Drugs Like Ozempic (Semaglutide) Within Months?" As the popularity of Ozempic-type drugs, like semaglutide, soars, what do we need to know about their effect on our weight? Even these newfangled anti-obesity medications aren’t a magic bullet. The overall weight-loss benefits are notable, but nonetheless limited. The best of them can produce a 20 to 25 percent weight loss, but they still leave most users overweight or obese, only modestly less so, and, thus, still facing major health risks. And, of course, the drugs are only effective as long as they’re used. Not only does the weight loss plateau, but years or, presumably, a lifetime of continuing treatment is required just to maintain their initial benefits, and most people stop taking them within months before even reaching an effective dose. The manufacturers recommend ramping up dosage over four or five months, but based on 169,000 real-world patients using GLP-1 drugs for weight management, most individuals didn’t stay on their prescribed treatment for even three months, which suggests it was unlikely they were achieving clinically meaningful weight loss. In fact, only about half take the drug for even two months, and 80 percent quit by six months. Why don’t people stick with it? One reason may be that these drugs are costly. And costly is a bit of an understatement. The costs of these drugs are enormous, like $1,000 a month in perpetuity, since any lost pounds can pile back on if you stop taking them. Wegovy, the high-dose Ozempic used for weight loss, costs up to about $1,350 dollars a month. So, that’s like paying $15,000 out-of-pocket every year. And some say healthy eating is expensive? You could have Food Is Medicine programs deliver healthy food to your door for ten times less. You could even have fully prepared meals delivered to your door at a fraction of the cost of the drug. Of course, the drugs should get cheaper. There are hopes that competition will lower prices, but each GLP-1 drug is protected by approximately 20 patents, many up to 2040 or beyond; so, they probably won’t get much cheaper anytime soon. But isn’t obesity itself expensive? Even factoring in health benefits and discounted prices, these drugs may not be cost effective. In one analysis, total annual health care costs doubled for patients, going from about $13,000 per year before starting the drug to $26,000 after. Now, the benefits of weight loss accrue over time, but because lost pounds are commonly regained after stopping the drug, an additional vexing conundrum is created for payers like insurance companies. Why shell out all that money to get people the drug, if most are just gonna stop taking it and simply regain the weight? Why are the drugs so expensive? "There is no rational reason, other than greed," according to Senator Sanders, noting that Canadians and Germans are paying about 10 times less for the same drugs. Wegovy, the high-dose Ozempic used for weight loss, can sell for $1,300 a month in the U.S. but less than a hundred a month in the U.K. Here’s what different countries pay for the exact same dose of Ozempic. The researchers even calculated the "estimated minimum price," how much it could be manufactured and sold profitably for. So, for 40 dollars a month, Novo Nordisk, the makers of Ozempic, could be pulling in a 10 percent profit margin. But why make 10 percent profit when you can make more than 3,000% profit? But don’t they need those huge profit margins to recoup research and development? I mean, it’s expensive to develop drugs. Novo Nordisk spends twice as much money enriching its shareholders, by doing things like stock buybacks to jack up stock prices, than it does on all R&D. In fact, most big drug companies spend more on these kind of self-enrichment schemes than actual research. Whatever the actual cost of developing a drug, drug companies may spend far more on marketing drugs than developing them. For example, while gouging patients $1,000 a month for their drugs, Novo Nordisk was spending millions of dollars wining and dining doctors to prescribe more of them. Hundreds of thousands of meals and snacks served to promote drugs like Ozempic. In fact, Novo Nordisk was actually suspended from a pharmaceutical industry trade association for failing to disclose its sponsorship of a training course for healthcare professionals that just so happened to plug one of its GLP-1 drugs, a violation bad enough for the Royal College of Physicians to sever its ties with the drug giant. Anyway, back to the original question: Why do so few people stay on these drugs? Well, people may start out obese and end up obese. Is it worth paying $1,000 a month just to stay less obese? You can see why people might just cut their losses. But no, the study showed that most people who quit these drugs after just a few months were not only insured, they had their drugs covered by their insurance. So, maybe the reason most people quit so soon after starting is not due to their cost, but rather their side effects, which we’ll cover next.