A new treatment dubbed the “King Kong” of weight loss jabs is more than twice as effective at shedding pounds than Wegovy, a study suggests.
Tirzepatide is also considerably more effective at helping to maintain blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, the researchers found.
The drug was approved for use in the UK for diabetes earlier this month – and manufacturer Eli Lilly hopes approval for weight loss will follow in the coming months.
But the treatment, sold under the brand name Mounjaro, is not expected to become available at all in the UK until at least the start of 2024, to ensure there will be enough supply to meet demand.
High-profile weight loss drug Wegovy was rolled out in the UK this month by its manufacturer Novo Nordisk through “a controlled and limited launch” due to ongoing shortages of the key ingredient – semaglutide.
The same ingredient is used in Ozempic jabs, which have been prescribed to diabetes patients since 2019, but have been sold privately “off-label” in the UK as an anti-obesity treatment due to its soaring popularity.
Semaglutide has been hailed for its effectiveness as a treatment for diabetes and weight loss.
Now a study, by Aristotle University of Thessalonki in Greece, suggests tirzepatide could be even more effective for both uses.
The study compared equivalent 12-week courses of the drugs and found that tirzepatide causes 10.96kg of weight loss at the highest once-weekly 15mg dose, compared to 5.24kg for Wegovy.
And it was 23 per cent more effective at bringing down blood sugar levels among people with diabetes, the study found.
The research is a meta-analysis combining 22 studies that involved a total of 18,472 diabetes patients, making it the most comprehensive report so far comparing the two drugs.
“The findings of our analysis are significant. It suggests that tirzepatide outperforms semaglutide in terms of blood sugar control and weight loss,” Thomas Karagiannis, from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, told i.
He said: “The weight loss figures are compelling and they are also quite impressive in terms of blood sugar control.
“While individual trials have shown the efficacy of both semaglutide and tirzepatide versus placebo or other antidiabetic drugs, direct comparisons between these medications have been limited.”
Dr Karagiannis added: “We used a technique called network meta-analysis to indirectly compare tirzepatide with semaglutide by using additional trials that compared either of the two drugs with placebo or another treatment.”
Scientists not involved in the study welcomed the findings but said more research is still needed to determine the drug’s effectiveness.
Simon Cork, of Anglia Ruskin University, said: “The evidence that tirzepatide is effective at treating type 2 diabetes and producing weight loss is a welcome result.
“Adding more weaponry to our arsenal is beneficial both to patients, who have increased choice about which drugs they can take, as well as health care systems with increased competition amongst manufacturers and the cost benefits that this brings.
“With the advent of novel effective drugs which augment the bodies natural way of controlling blood sugar and body weight, I truly believe we are the precipice of a transformation in how we treat both type 2 diabetes and obesity.”
The findings will be presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting in Hamburg next month.
They have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal. However, the research is based on randomised control studies which are generally well-regarded as they randomly allocate participants to various drugs and placebos, so that any other factors that could influence the result – such as genetics and greater health consciousness in general – can be ironed out.
Jonathan Silcock, of Bradford University, said: “At this point and with so much demand any evidence that these newer agents are effective – compared to older alternatives – is welcome.”
However, he said he’d like to reserve final judgement on the research until he has seen a full, peer-reviewed study.
