Oral GLP-1 Medications Increase Accessibility and Affordability

Key Quotes

"And insurance coverage has been tricky to navigate for a lot of people. That’s why there’s a lot of excitement around a new pill form of the drug."

Sydney Lupkin explains that the difficulty in obtaining insurance coverage for expensive GLP-1 injections has created significant anticipation for an oral, pill-based version of these medications. This highlights a key barrier to access for many individuals seeking these treatments.

"And glp1 by the way is a hormone your body naturally makes it stands for glucagon like peptide one as soon as you ingest food your body um is going to start secreting um glp1 because it immediately triggers that oh you've ingested some food and so it's going to tell your brain you're eating and so it's going to make sure it triggers that effect so that you start to feel full but it's a very short acting and only lasts a couple of minutes"

Emily Kwong clarifies that GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone that signals satiety after eating, but its effect is brief. This sets the stage for understanding how GLP-1 medications are designed to mimic and extend this natural signaling process.

"We took out a couple of amino acids and exchanged them for other ones so that the molecule can't immediately be degraded by the enzyme that our body naturally makes to break it down and then the second thing we did is we added a big fatty acid chain to the end of it so that it binds to protein and hangs out in the body for longer"

Andrea, as explained by Sydney Lupkin, details the modifications made to create semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Lupkin highlights that these changes, including amino acid exchange and the addition of a fatty acid chain, are designed to prevent rapid breakdown and prolong the drug's presence in the body.

"Andrea says to think about how your stomach breaks down some chicken that you've eaten our body is trained to release enzymes and to attack those proteins almost immediately to break them down into smaller pieces so that they can be absorbed so for 100 years we've been trying to make a protein peptide based molecule able to be absorbed orally"

Sydney Lupkin relays Andrea's explanation of the challenge in creating oral peptide-based drugs. Lupkin emphasizes that the body's natural digestive process, which quickly breaks down proteins like chicken, is the primary obstacle that scientists have been working to overcome for a century.

"The catch is that you have to take this pill on an empty stomach and wait 30 minutes before eating anything else for it to work"

Sydney Lupkin points out a specific requirement for the Novo Nordisk semaglutide pill: it must be taken on an empty stomach with a 30-minute waiting period before consuming food. Lupkin notes that this strict regimen may make the pill unsuitable for some individuals.

"Patients who took orforglipron had 12 average weight loss at its highest dose over 72 weeks and another study showed it was also effective at lowering patients' a1c which is a measure of blood sugar"

Sydney Lupkin reports on the efficacy of the oral medication orforglipron, developed by Eli Lilly. Lupkin states that studies indicate significant average weight loss and a positive impact on blood sugar levels, as measured by A1C.