New research shows that a sizable minority of folks who start Wegovy or other weight-loss meds quit within a few months of use Half of users who are obese but not diabetic quit the meds by the one-year mark Cost and side effects appeared to be key factors THURSDAY, May 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Three months after starting one of the new GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, more than a quarter of patients have already quit the medications, and by a year from first use more than a third have stopped, new research shows. Reasons for quitting Wegovy, Ozempic or similar drugs may include cost or gastrointestinal side effects, said a team led by Urvashi Patel , of the Evernorth Research Institute in St. Louis.
The drugs' price tag could be a big factor: Wegovy (semaglutide) costs about $1,300 per month, for example. "Each 1–percentage point increase in out-of-pocket cost per a 30-day supply of GLP-1 agonist was associated with increased odds of discontinuation," Patel's group noted. They published the findings May 23 in the journal JAMA Network Open .
The St. Louis team looked at information from a major U.S.
drug database on the use of GLP-1 meds by adults from early 2021 through to the end of 2023. Tirzepatide (Zepbound) was excluded from the list of GLP-1 meds because it was only approved by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration at the end of 2023. The database of nearly 196,000 patients found that by three months after starting a GLP-1 drug, just over 26% of users had already disconti.
