STAT+: What comes after Wegovy? The quest to eradicate obesity
The companies that started an obesity revolution with drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound are jumping into the next phase: a mission to eliminate obesity altogether.
About a decade ago, after becoming obese, Jacob Petersen lost weight so quickly that some colleagues worried he might have cancer.
Petersen, who was then the head of global metabolic research at Novo Nordisk, hadn’t turned to his company’s famed medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy — the wildly effective drugs didn’t exist yet. Instead, he said, he exercised intensively. And while he’s kept the weight off over the ensuing years, he’s had the same struggle of many who have shed pounds, regardless of the method.
“The second I forget about it, or I travel too much so I don’t exercise at all, then I put on weight,” he said. “It never goes away, and the pressure to regain your body weight will be there most likely for the rest of your life.”
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