On March 8, 2024, a box of Ozempic produced by Novo Nordisk was displayed in a pharmacy in London, England.
Holly Adams | Reuters
Novo NordiskThe company’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic may reduce the risk of opioid overdose in some patients, according to a study, demonstrating its potential as an alternative treatment for opioid use disorder. new research Published Wednesday.
The paper published in JAMA Network Open says semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, is associated with an increased risk of opioid overdose compared with other diabetes drugs in patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder. “significantly reduced”.
Results demonstrate the potential Ozempic could offer as a tool to address current issues in the United States. opioid epidemic Declaring a public health emergency 2017. Xu Rongprofessor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University.
By 2022, only about a quarter According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with opioid use disorder receive recommended medication, and many discontinue treatment within six months. The National Center on Drug Abuse Statistics says opioids are responsible for about 72% U.S. drug overdose deaths
The findings also provide further evidence that GLP-1, a popular diabetes and obesity treatment, may have multiple health benefits in addition to regulating blood sugar and promoting weight loss. Its competitor Novo Nordisk Eli Lilly and Company Independent researchers have been racing to study the drugs’ potential for patients with chronic conditions, including kidney disease and sleep apnea, as well as addictive behaviors such as nicotine and alcohol consumption.
In the study released Wednesday, researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the National Institutes of Health analyzed the electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients who took semaglutide or other diabetes drugs between December 2017 and June 2023. .
About 3,000 people received semaglutide injections, while the remainder received treatments ranging from insulin to the older diabetes GLP-1. These include dulaglutide (the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Trulicity) and liraglutide (the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s Victoza).
The researchers monitored the number of opioid overdose cases that occurred within a year after patients stopped treatment with semaglutide or other medications. For example, there were 42 opioid overdoses in one group of patients who received semaglutide, and 97 in another group of patients who received insulin, according to the study.
This reflects a 58% reduction in the risk of opioid overdose in patients taking semaglutide, Xu said.
But Xu noted that the study had limitations because it relied on data from electronic health records.
The study authors said more research, particularly clinical trials that randomly assign patients to receive semaglutide or other treatments, is needed to confirm the extent to which Ozempic and other GLP-1s can help patients with opioid use disorder. These randomized studies can also determine whether these treatments are beneficial for people with opioid use disorder in general or only for some patients with the disorder.
“The extent to which GLP-1 drugs can help treat opioid use disorder and help prevent overdoses is unclear,” said Nora Volkow, one of the study’s lead authors and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the NIH. said Dr. in a statement to CNBC. “Preliminary results from this study suggest that GLP-1 drugs may help prevent opioid overdose.”
Xu added that the researchers plan to study semaglutide in patients with opioid use disorder and obesity.
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