A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care news straight to your inbox.We need to see more data from longer and larger clinical trials, which will likely take years for Roche to conduct.on its experimental obesity injection and pill, which some analysts said raised concerns about how competitive those products can be if they enter the space.
That"competitive" weight loss appears to be driven by"rapid" dose increases, which caused a high frequency of gastrointestinal side effects, according to the Jefferies analysts. But they noted that those side effects could be mitigated by a more gradual dosage ramp-up. The analysts said a group of patients who eventually received the lowest maximum dose of the pill – 90 milligrams – still saw high rates of nausea"with limited weight loss efficacy."
But the"whole point" of the study on the pill was to"fail fast" and determine whether unexpected safety or efficacy issues exist, Manu Chakravarthy, Roche's head of product development for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, "So nothing unexpected that we saw in safety, which actually gives us a lot of confidence to…move the program forward into phase two," Chakravarthy said, noting that Roche plans to start mid-stage studies in 2025.
A continuous glucose monitor, or a CGM, is a small sensor that pokes through the skin to track a user's real-time glucose levels. Glucose is a sugar we get from food, and it's the body's main source of energy. Everyone's glucose levels fluctuate, but consistently high levels can lead to more serious health problems like metabolic disease, insulin resistance and heart disease.