A box of Ozempic manufactured by Novo Nordisk is seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain, March 8, 2024.
Hollie Adams | Reuters
New NordiskThe blockbuster 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 new study published Wednesday.
Ozempic's active ingredient, semaglutide, was associated with a “significantly lower” risk of opioid overdose than other diabetes medications in people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder, the paper published in JAMA Network Open noted.
The results suggest that Ozempic could offer potential as a tool to address the current crisis in the United States.. 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 won’t use them, said study co-senior 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 them, and many stopped treatment within six months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics says opioids are a factor in about 72% of overdose deaths in the U.S.
The study results also add to growing evidence that a popular class of diabetes and obesity treatments called GLP-1s may have several health benefits beyond regulating blood sugar and promoting weight loss. Novo Nordisk, its rival Eli Lilly And independent researchers have been racing to study the potential of such drugs in patients with chronic conditions ranging from kidney disease and sleep apnea to addictive behaviors such as nicotine and alcohol use.
In the study published Wednesday, researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the National Institutes of Health analyzed electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients who were prescribed semaglutide or other diabetes medications 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 of the patients received treatments ranging from insulins to older GLP-1 diabetes drugs. These include dulaglutide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly's Trulicity drug, and liraglutide, which is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Victoza.
Researchers monitored how many opioid overdose cases occurred in patients over a one-year period after they stopped treatment with semaglutide or other medications. For example, there were 42 cases of opioid overdose among a group of patients who received semaglutide, compared with 97 cases among another group who received insulins, according to the study.
This reflects a 58% lower risk of opioid overdose in patients taking semaglutide, Xu said.
But Xu noted that the study has limitations because it relies on data from electronic medical records.
More research, specifically clinical trials that randomly assign patients to receive semaglutide or other treatments, is needed to confirm how well Ozempic and other GLP-1s can help people with opioid use disorder, according to the study authors. These randomized trials may also determine whether these treatments are beneficial for the general population with opioid use disorder or only for certain patients with the condition.
“It is unclear to what extent GLP-1 medications might benefit the treatment of opioid use disorders and help prevent overdoses,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, co-senior author of the study and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, in a statement to CNBC. “The preliminary findings of this study point to the possibility that GLP-1 medications may have value in helping to prevent opioid overdoses.”
Xu added that researchers plan to study semaglutide in patients with opioid use disorder and obesity.
