A box of Ozempic by Novo Nordisk is seen in a pharmacy in London, United Kingdom on March 8, 2024.
Hollie Adams | Reuters
Novo NordiskFDA-approved diabetes drug Ozempic may reduce the risk of opioid overdose in certain patients, demonstrating its potential as an alternative treatment for opioid use disorder, according to a study released Wednesday.
Ozempic's active ingredient, semaglutide, is associated with a “significantly lower” risk of opioid overdose than other diabetes medications in people diagnosed with both type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder, according to the article published in JAMA Network Open.
The results suggest that Ozempic may be a potential tool to combat the ongoing US. Opioid epidemic, which was declared a public health emergency in 2017. There are currently three effective medications to prevent overdoses from opioid use disorder, but a new alternative is needed because some patients simply don't use them, said study lead co-author Dr. Rong Xu, a professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University.
In 2022, only about a quarter of patients with opioid use disorder received the medications recommended for it, and many dropped out of treatment within six months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics says opioids play a role in about 72% of overdose deaths in the U.S.
The study results also provide evidence that a very popular class of diabetes and obesity drugs called GLP-1 may have multiple health benefits beyond regulating blood sugar and promoting weight loss. Novo Nordisk, its competitor Eli Lilly and independent researchers are currently intensively studying the potential of these drugs in patients with chronic conditions ranging from kidney disease and sleep apnea to addictive behaviors such as nicotine and alcohol abuse.
In the study published Wednesday, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the National Institutes of Health analyzed the electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients who were prescribed semaglutide or other diabetes drugs between December 2017 and June 2023. The study was not funded by Novo Nordisk.
About 3,000 people were prescribed semaglutide injections, while the rest received treatments ranging from insulins to older GLP-1 diabetes drugs, including dulaglutide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly's drug Trulicity, and liraglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Victoza.
Researchers monitored how many cases of opioid overdoses occurred in patients within a year after they stopped treatment with semaglutide or other drugs. For example, there were 42 cases of opioid overdoses in a group of patients receiving semaglutide, compared with 97 cases in another group receiving insulin, the study said.
This reflects a 58 percent lower risk of opioid overdose in patients taking semaglutide, Xu said.
However, Xu pointed out that the study has limitations because it is based on data from electronic health records.
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To confirm the extent to which Ozempic and other GLP-1 preparations can help patients with opioid use disorder, further research is needed, particularly clinical trials in which patients are randomly assigned to receive semaglutide or other treatments, according to the study authors. These randomized trials can also help determine whether treatments are beneficial for the general population with opioid use disorder or only for certain patients with the disorder.
“The extent to which GLP-1 medications can help treat opioid use disorder and prevent overdoses is unclear,” Dr. Nora Volkow, senior co-author of the study and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement to CNBC. “The preliminary results of this study suggest that GLP-1 medications may be helpful in preventing opioid overdoses.”
Xu added that researchers plan to study semaglutide in patients with opioid use disorder and obesity.
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