Ozempic Cuts Risk of Kidney Disease Death in People with Diabetes
Semaglutide, the same compound in obesity drug Wegovy, slashes risk of kidney failure and death for people with type 2 diabetes
The blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic — also sold as the obesity drug Wegovy — can add another health condition to the list of maladies it alleviates. Researchers presented clinical-trial data today at a conference in Stockholm, showing that it significantly reduces the risk of kidney failure and death for people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Scientists are thrilled with the result, and think that the drug, otherwise known by its generic name, semaglutide, will eventually be proved to help a more general population of people with kidney disease. This trial is a first step towards that goal, they say.
Semaglutide manufacturer Novo Nordisk, based in Bagsværd, Denmark, announced in October that it had halted its kidney-disease trial because of a recommendation from an independent data-safety monitoring board that the overwhelmingly positive results made it unethical to continue to give some participants a placebo. But until now, it hadn’t revealed the full data analysis, which is also published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.
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The phase IIIb trial, which enrolled 3,533 people, showed that those who received semaglutide injections weekly were 24% less likely to have ‘major kidney disease events’, including kidney failure and dying owing to kidney complications, than were those getting a placebo. Kidney…
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