The weight loss drug Wegovy was shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke or heart disease-related death by 20% in a major clinical trial in people with cardiovascular disease, the first to show a weight loss drug alone can have such protective effects.
Novo Nordisk studied Wegovy against placebo in addition to standard of care for prevention of major adverse cardiac events in 17,604 adults with heart disease and obesity or who were overweight, but who didn’t have diabetes. It called the trial “Select.”
The finding of a 20% reduction in heart risk is higher than many experts had anticipated. A similar trial for the type 2 diabetes drug Ozempic, which uses the same ingredient, semaglutide, previously showed it could reduce cardiovascular risk by 26% — but no trial had yet shown a risk reduction in people without diabetes.
“Select is a landmark trial and has demonstrated that semaglutide 2.4mg has the potential to change how obesity is regarded and treated,” said Martin Holst Lange, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president for development.
[Novo Nordisk has a significant manufacturing presence in Durham and Johnston counties.]
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
