Novo Nordisk’s (NYSE:NVO) blockbuster weight loss injection Wegovy could prevent up to 1.5 million heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events in the U.S. over 10 years, according to a study released this week.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, also found that Wegovy could result in 43 million fewer Americans with obesity over a decade. Notably, the study was partly funded by Novo Nordisk.
The study results complement the initial data the Danish company released last week from a large clinical trial, which found that Wegovy slashed the risk of serious heart problems and heart-related death by 20%.
Novo Nordisk’s trial studied overweight or obese patients with established cardiovascular disease, while UC Irvine’s study examined similar patients, albeit without the disease.
Together, the results suggest that Wegovy and, likely, similar obesity drugs have significant health benefits beyond shedding unwanted pounds. Physicians and Wall Street analysts hope that could eventually put more pressure on insurers to cover obesity medications, which cost more than $1,000 a month.
“It is one of the biggest advances in the obesity and cardiovascular medicine world,” said Nathan Wong, who led the study and is director of the Heart Disease Prevention Program in UC Irvine’s division of cardiology.
“We now have a weight control therapy that also significantly reduces cardiovascular events beyond the diabetes population where it was originally studied.”
NVO shares began Thursday ahead $1.83, or 1%, to $186.43.
