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Experimental Weight Loss and Diabetes Drug in Clinical Trials

Diabetes and obesity are carefully linked, and lots of diabetics wrestle to comply with their doctor's orders to lose weight. The biopharmaceutical firm Vivus hopes to market an investigational new drug, Qnexa, as each a weight loss drug and a diabetes medication.

Qnexa is in part three medical trials to deal with obesity, and in part 2 medical development for the therapy of type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. The latest medical trial of Qnexa as a weight reduction drug resulted in a median 10 percent weight reduction in study participants.

Qnexa is a mixture of the urge for food suppressant phentermine, (finest often called the "phen" in fen-phen, a controversial weight loss drug that was pulled off the market in 1997), and the anticonvulsant topiramate, prescribed to deal with epilepsy and stop migraine headaches.

Qnexa was denied approval in late 2010, when the FDA expressed concerns a few barely elevated threat of opposed psychiatric and cardiovascular occasions, and questioned the potential for beginning defects in pregnant women taking the drug.

More than 2400 patients took part within the newest study. Study contributors were all clinically overweight, and likewise suffered from two or extra secondary medical circumstances similar to diabetes or heart disease. Sufferers also noticed enhancements in hypertension, cholesterol and A1C levels (glycated hemoglobin). Excessive A1C ranges point out excessive ranges of blood glucose in diabetics.

Shares of Vivus have elevated up to sixteen % in value since the newest research results were released. If accepted, Qnexa would be the primary new weight reduction drug on the market in additional than ten years. At the moment, the only FDA accepted prescription weight loss drug is orlistat (Zenical). Orlistat prevents the body from absorbing the fat in food, and is known for unpleasant unintended effects akin to free, oily stools, fecal incontinence and flatulence.

A second weight-loss drug producer, Orexigen, is also struggling to get FDA approval for his or her new weight-reduction plan drug, Contrave. Contrave is a combination of bupropion (the antidepressant Wellbutrin, also marketed as the smoking cessation aid Zyban) and naltrexone, an opiate antagonist prescribed to deal with narcotic and alcohol addiction. Contrave is designed to curb food cravings, and proved effective than Qnexa by way of weight loss.

Contrave passed a major hurdle in late 2010 when an FDA advisory committee voted thirteen-7 for its approval, but the FDA disagreed in early 2011, asking for a new clinical trial evaluating the drug's cardiovascular risks.

Enviornment Pharmaceutical's Lorcaserin was the third weight-reduction plan drug to fail to win FDA approval in 2010, when the FDA deemed that security considerations outweighed the drug's "marginal effectiveness".

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