Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro? The battle of the weight-loss injections
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Occasionally, a breakthrough comes along that fundamentally transforms the medical landscape, to the extent that it is difficult to imagine what life was like before it emerged. In 1928, it was penicillin. Twenty years later, it was chemotherapy. In the 1990s, it was anti-retrovirals for HIV. Now, some doctors have equally high hopes for the rapid development of weight-loss medications for the obesity crisis.
The latest incidence of this in the UK came last week, when health secretary Wes Streeting announced that drugs like Wegovy or Mounjaro could be given to unemployed people to help them get back into work. Streeting said that “widening waistbands” were placing a burden on the health service, and that nearly £279 million will be invested in trials for weight-loss jabs under a new partnership between the government and US pharmaceuticals company Eli Lilly. The money provided by the company, which is the world’s biggest drug maker, will also fund research into ways to tackle the UK’s obesity crisis.
Certain weight-loss medications are available on the NHS but the government’s announcement has firmly established the drugs as key to its strategy for tackling the obesity crisis. And on Monday (January 13) the success of this medication is going under the microscope as the BBC’s Panorama delves deep into the world of “skinny jabs”.
