The UK’s first weight loss pill has today been approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)
The medicines regulator said the oral version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy jab has been authorised to treat adults with obesity, who have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, or who are overweight with a BMI between 27 and 30 and “at least one weight-related comorbidity”.
It added that the starting dose for the semaglutide pill is one 1.5mg tablet daily, which will then increase to 4mg, 9mg and 25mg “with a minimum duration of one month at each dose level”.
Read more: Superdrug developing Wegovy pill service ahead of UK approval
And patients currently treated privately with a once-weekly 2.4 mg semaglutide injection “can be transitioned straight to semaglutide 25mg tablets once-daily”.
MHRA healthcare quality executive director Julian Beach said the Wegovy pill met the regulator’s “rigorous standards of safety, quality and effectiveness” and confirmed it is a prescription-only medication “as with all GLP-1 receptor agonists”.
The MHRA said the pill is “not available currently” on the NHS, and “any decisions on NHS use will follow established processes, including an evaluation by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence”.
Read more: Wegovy pill: First oral GLP-1 weight loss drug launches in US
National Pharmacy Association chair Olivier Picard said the approval is a “significant” moment for patients “who cannot or do not want to take an injectable medicine”, adding that it may “bring down the cost of treatment in the long run”.
But he raised concerns about “a growing black market for counterfeit weight loss treatments” and said weight loss pills could make it “potentially easier for criminals to counterfeit”.
“Patients must only ever obtain weight loss medication, properly prescribed and dispensed by a regulated pharmacy,” Picard added.
Read more: Eli Lilly’s new GLP-1 weight loss pill gets US approval
It comes after the Wegovy pill became the first oral GLP-1 drug to be approved for weight loss in December, before hitting the US market in January.
And it follows C+D exclusively revealing this week that Superdrug is developing a new weight loss service for the Wegovy pill ahead of the drug’s UK approval.
