The Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk announced on Tuesday October 8 the marketing in France of its flagship drug against obesity, Wegovy, but without reimbursement at this stage and within a framework restricted by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) .
This launch comes against a backdrop of exploding demand for a new generation of effective treatments for weight loss: GLP-1 analogues, including Wegovy. This class of drugs mimics an intestinal hormone that stimulates insulin secretion and provides a feeling of fullness.
In a message sent to AFP, the general director of the France subsidiary of Novo Nordisk, Etienne Tichit, expresses “the pride of having reopened the path of research in the complex and relapsing chronic disease that is obesity” . He “hopes that this arrival will allow many French patients to enter a care pathway including a low-calorie diet and increased physical activity which remains essential”.
Only as second intention
For its part, the ANSM indicated in a separate press release “to restrict the conditions of prescription and delivery of all aGLP-1 indicated in the treatment of obesity”, by requiring that the prescriptions for initiation of treatment be provided by specialists in endocrinology-diabetology-nutrition. On the other hand, renewals can be carried out by general practitioners.
The agency also asks doctors to comply with the care pathway of the High Authority for Health, that is to say to “prescribe aGLP-1 indicated in the treatment of obesity to patients with a mass index initial body mass (BMI) greater than or equal to 35 kg/m2, aged less than 65 years. This medication should only be used as a second line, in the event of failure of nutritional support and in combination with a low-calorie diet and physical activity, recalls the ANSM.
The active substance in Wegovy, semaglutide, is the same as that of the antidiabetic Ozempic also manufactured by Novo Nordisk, but in obesity it is used in higher dosages. Wegovy was authorized by the European Medicines Agency in early 2022 for the management of obesity in adults and since 2023 for adolescents over 12 years old.