GLP-1 hybrid drug being tested as weight-loss aid

An experimental weight-loss pill appears to help people quickly shed pounds, a new study says.

People who took the drug amycretin lost up to 13% of their body weight over three months, according to early clinical trial results presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting in Madrid.

Amycretin mimics the action of two different hunger-related hormones at once, says Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharma company developing the drug.

The drug mimics glucagon, which is the hormone also imitated by the cutting-edge GLP-1 diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which are given via weekly injection.

On top of that, amycretin also mimics amylin, another hormone implicated in hunger and insulin control.

"A single molecule that targets both amylin and GLP-1 biology in a tablet form could offer a more convenient approach to achieving better outcomes for individuals with overweight or obesity," Novo Nordisk researchers wrote in a company news release.

For the study, researchers tested amycretin on overweight and obese people who didn't have diabetes.

They found that amycretin outperformed placebo in helping people lose weight, and that higher doses of amycretin caused more weight loss .

Participants taking a single daily 50-milligram dose of amycretin lost a little more than 10% of their body weight, on average, within 12 weeks, researchers found.

Those taking the 50-mg pill twice a day lost even more, dropping 13% of their body weight

However, higher doses of amycretin also caused more side effects like nausea and vomiting, researchers noted.

People also continued losing weight as they took the drug, without hitting a plateau, results showed.

The results show that amycretin led to "remarkable reductions in body weight over only 12 weeks," the research team led by Agnes Gasoirek , a senior clinical pharmacology specialist at Novo Nordisk, wrote in their abstract. "Furthermore, the lack of weight loss plateauing indicates the possibility of achieving further weight reductions with extended treatment."

However, researchers said larger and longer clinical trials are needed to fully assess the drug's safety and effectiveness.

Novo Nordisk funded the clinical trial.

Because these findings were published at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on GLP-1 agonists .

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