Revolutionary weight-loss jabs that ministers hope will turn the tide in the UK’s war on flabbiness are wasting patients’ muscles, a pharmaceutical boss has warned.
Injections such as Wegovy and Saxenda, which mimic a hormone that tricks the body into becoming full, have been approved in Britain to help tackle the obesity crisis.
But Pascal Soriot, boss of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, a company best known for its Covid jab, warned they could shrink patients’ muscles.
Doctors have previously warned that this effect could make users metabolically ‘fatter’ as they will have a higher fat-to-muscle percentage, increasing the risk of regaining the pounds once they stop taking the medication.
“Today you lose weight, but you lose fat and you lose muscle,” Mr Soriot said The Telegraph.
AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot warned of the downsides of weight-loss jabs from the company’s rivals as the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker looks to enter the obesity drug market
Mr Soriot said weight loss jabs, such as those from market leader Wegovy, cause patients to lose both muscle mass and fat, and also complained about the environmental costs of single-use injections.
‘Most people gain back the fat once they stop taking the drugs, but not so much the muscle they have lost, unless of course they go to the gym.’
AstraZeneca is lagging behind rival pharmaceutical giants in its weight loss offers, but is hoping for a pill that the drugmaker hopes will trump its jab offers.
The weight loss drug market is predicted to be worth billions in the coming years as countries grapple with the financial and social costs of obesity.
Mr Soriot said pharmaceutical companies need to “improve the quality” of weight loss to ensure the effects do not disappear when patients stop taking it and to reduce side effects such as muscle loss.
He also complained about the environmental costs of single-use jabs.
‘If you consider that a billion people use one plastic pen every week, that’s a lot of plastic. “All these plastic pens are going to become a problem at some point,” he said.
The Anglo-Swedish company has fallen behind rivals such as Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy, and US company Eli Lilly, maker of the recently approved Mounjaro.
But it hopes an upcoming pill, cheaper than the jabs, will allow the country to gain ground in the market.
AstraZeneca has struck a £1.6 billion deal with Chinese biotech company Eccogene for an experimental pill they are developing.
Mr Soriot said the overall aim will be to combine the fat-burning pill with other drugs to help treat some of the consequences of obesity, such as high blood pressure and heart disease.
Although no price for the pill has been announced, slimming shots can privately cost between £180 and £300 per dose.
However, if prescribed by the NHS, people in England only pay a basic prescription fee of £9.65.
Novo Nordisk, the market leader, has its specific weight loss drug Wegovy, as well as Ozempic, a diabetes drug that uses the same active ingredient and is controversially prescribed ‘off-label’ for weight loss.
This has led to some diabetes patients taking the drug experiencing supply shortages.
Novo Nordisk is enjoying a huge profit boost, revealing last month it was making £32m a day, as countries grapple with the financial costs of flab fighting to get their hands on the jabs.
Great Britain is one of them. The latest data for England shows that almost two-thirds of adults are overweight, compared to just half in the mid-1990s.
Obesity also takes a financial toll, with consequent health consequences in terms of lost working years, healthcare costs and the price of NHS treatments, which are estimated to cost the economy £100 billion per year.
Experts have warned that Wegovy is not a ‘magic pill’. Research has shown that users can quickly regain weight when they stop taking it, and that this can cause side effects including nausea, constipation and diarrhea.
Your browser does not support iframes.
Although they are being hailed as a ‘game changer’ in the battle against bulging waistlines, the pricks also have drawbacks.
Patients must take the injection for life or see the kilos they have lost pile back up, doctors warn.
Second, like any other drug, they can have side effects that vary in frequency and severity.
These include nausea, constipation and diarrhea, fatigue, stomach pain, headache and dizziness.
Stranger and much rarer side effects have also been reported, such as hair loss.