New ICON Survey Highlights Importance of Combination Therapies in Future Obesity Treatment - Seite 2

Jack Martin, Senior Director, Cardiovascular Therapeutics at ICON, points to the recent significant advances in the development of obesity-related treatments, from drugs to devices, commenting: “It has shone a light on the future potential of obesity treatment. The findings in this survey are constructive in identifying areas that we can focus on to continue these advancements. What’s clear is that taking a holistic view of the disease and its related co-morbidities – from diabetes to MASH and cardiac conditions – is a hugely important consideration for the clinical trial design of potential new treatments.”

Globally, there are currently more than 1,000 ongoing clinical trials² involving obesity drugs from pre-clinical to phase III trials. Many of the drugs being investigated are injectable and target GLP-1 hormone receptors and other hormones involved in satiety and metabolism, but others are exploring different mechanisms.

As researchers look to progress the field of obesity treatment, there are several unique considerations to account for in their approach to drug development and clinical trials. ICON has consolidated the latest thinking on current approaches to treating obesity and outlined considerations to improve future clinical trial design in the new whitepaper, entitled, "A multifaceted risk factor: Addressing obesity's impact across the disease spectrum". Highlights include:

• A look at the guidelines to treat obesity issued by various healthcare associations that advise a combination of lifestyle changes and pharmacotherapies, as well as more intense methods like bariatric surgery
• New pharmacological treatments currently in clinical trials, including several new GLP-1 receptor agonists, individually as well as in combination with other mechanisms, such as GIP and glucagon agonists
• Strategies to enhance recruitment among underrepresented populations to significantly increase the diversity of trials
• Using clinical trial tokenisation to gather real world data on the safety and effectiveness of a drug long after a trial has concluded, enabling deeper insights of disease and treatment patterns over time

For further information please visit www.iconplc.com/obesity.