The challenges in the treatment of obesity are in providing practical, long-term solutions to a condition that is growing rapidly and is associated with numerous co-morbidities that include diabetes, hypertension (and other cardiovascular diseases), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), osteoarthritis, fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and cancer, among others.
The challenges in the treatment of obesity are in providing practical, long-term solutions to a condition that is growing rapidly and is associated with numerous co-morbidities that include diabetes, hypertension (and other cardiovascular diseases), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), osteoarthritis, fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and cancer, among others.
Obesity is most commonly addressed, from a clinical solution, in device- and non-device-related bariatric surgery and a very limited number of drugs. Roux-en-Y and other gastric bypass procedure volumes have seen steady increases over the past few years as these procedures have been aggressively marketed and third party reimbursement has become more common. Obesity device sales (lap-band and others) have grown, and will continue to grow, steadily.
As with most surgeries, however, there are morbidities associated with the procedures, whether or not devices are employed and long-term success has not been high enough to displace demand for pharmaceutical solutions. Development of pharmaceuticals for obesity has been aggressive, but fraught with uncertainty in the regulatory process that, until only in mid-2011, seemed to make approval to be a moving target, if not unreachable.
Beyond the revived approval process now in play for drugs by Vivus, Orexigen, and Arena, pharmaceutical development in the field of obesity is focusing on several major areas:
- Melanocortin receptor system
- Cannabinoid receptor agonists
- GLP-1 analogs
- Methionine aminopeptidase 2 (MetAP2) inhibitor
- Appetite suppression drugs (Arena’s lorcaserin, NeuroSearch’s Tesofensine, Shionogi’s Velneperit)
- Malabsorption drugs
- Satiety drugs
- Combination drugs
We track the market for all obesity drugs and devices on the market and in development in our Report #S835, “Products, Technologies and Markets Worldwide for the Clinical Management of Obesity, 2011-2019.”
