New Weight-Loss Drug May Be Worth the Wait
On April 26, the FDA will either approve a new drug for obesity called rimonabant...or they won't. We do think it will be approved, however, with warnings about important side effects, and that although it is not for everyone, it has undoubtedly helped some patients in trials reduce cardiometabolic risk factors. "Cardiometabolic risk," by the way, is a phrase increasingly used in diabetes. It describes the multi-faceted, overlapping risks for diabetes and cardiovascular disease faced by many people. So rimonabant is a "cannabinoid receptor agonist," which is a long way of saying that it reduces appetite. In a large, recent trial involving people with diabetes who were mostly not obese, rimonabant produced an average weight loss of 14.7 lbs (compared to 6.2 lb on placebo, or dummy pill). It also reduced A1c by 0.5%, which is pretty good considering the fairly low average starting A1c of 7.9%. While this reduction isn't on the scale of insulin, Byetta, TZDs, or even metformin, it's a nice bonus - basically, rimonabant may not only be good for weight loss, but it also improves "cardiometabolic" health in general for at least some patients. The main concern with rimonabant is some strange side effects involving "depressed mood" - definitely a concern, and we imagine the FDA will want very strong warning labels, which makes a lot of sense to us. We'll see what the FDA thinks come April, and report back then.
