Updated: FDA approves weight loss drug Wegovy to reduce cardiovascular events

The FDA on Fri­day ex­pand­ed the la­bel for No­vo Nordisk’s pop­u­lar weight loss in­jec­tion We­govy, ap­prov­ing it as a treat­ment to re­duce the risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar death, heart at­tack and stroke in adults with heart dis­ease who are al­so ei­ther obese or over­weight.

We­govy, al­so known as semaglu­tide, shined in the Phase III SE­LECT tri­al, where it cut ma­jor car­dio­vas­cu­lar risks by 20% and demon­strat­ed that the risk of death from car­dio­vas­cu­lar caus­es was 15% low­er in pa­tients get­ting the drug. The study, which en­rolled 17,604 pa­tients, is one of the largest and longest stud­ies to date in­ves­ti­gat­ing the GLP-1 in adults. Ma­jor ad­verse car­dio­vas­cu­lar events in­clude car­dio­vas­cu­lar death, non-fa­tal my­ocar­dial in­farc­tion or non-fa­tal stroke.

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