Acomplia makes weight loss easy

One of the world’s leading research firms on pharmaceutical and health care issues, Decision Resources, has recently reported that obesity is now at epidemic levels in seven of the world’s major markets: Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States. The challenge for these and other states where an increasing proportion of the population is becoming overweight, is how to respond.

Because changing any country’s culture takes time, the first response is likely to be demand for effective medications. Decision Resources predicts a fivefold growth from a current $478 million to $2.7 billion with the strongest demand in the US. But, as Sanofi-Aventis found when it submitted acomplia for approval, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was unsympathetic. The US “food lobby” resists any interference with its profitability and this is likely to cause problems for Amylin, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Merck and Pfizer that also have weight loss medications in the pipeline.

As a matter of public policy, it is startling that the US should be resisting the introduction of acomplia which has a consistent track record of producing an average 10% loss of weight across all participants in all clinical trials. Unless medications such as acomplia are approved, the medical profession in the US will not have any safe or effective medications with which to combat the epidemic. Over the next ten years, disability from diabetes, high blood pressure and strokes, and deaths from heart disease will begin to demonstrate the public policy deficiency at the highest levels in the US Government.