Obesity therapeutics: The end of the beginning

Abstract

Obese non-diabetic patients receiving semaglutide, an injectable long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist, in a large randomized placebo-controlled trial, lost and maintained ∼15% of their body weight for over a year (Wilding et al., 2021). This impressive result is likely to usher in a new era of anti-obesity drugs based on hormones that suppress food intake, largely through acting on the brain.