More than half of patients who start GLP-1 drugs stop taking them within a year. Side effects, high out-of-pocket costs, injection fatigue, and stigma around obesity treatment all play a role. When patients stop, many regain the weight they lost.
A small biotech company thinks a tiny implant placed under the skin could change that.
Vivani Medical is in the early stages of developing an experimental implant of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's obesity injection Wegovy and its diabetes counterpart Ozempic. Novo Nordisk announced Tuesday a new agreement with Vivani to evaluate its lead semaglutide implant, known as NPM-139, according to CNBC.
The vision is that patients would not use the implant to start GLP-1 treatment. Instead, they would first reach an appropriate dose using existing injections or pills, then potentially switch to the implant for longer-term maintenance. Vivani believes the device could eventually be administered just twice a year or even once annually.
"It's really critical to have options that make it easy for people to get the full benefits of these treatments and to not discontinue at the rates we're seeing," said Vivani President and CEO Adam Mendelsohn. "What these drugs are capable of is not being carefully taken advantage of right now."
The implant is still years away from reaching patients. It needs to clear multiple clinical trials and regulatory hurdles. Some doctors said there could be demand for such a device, but they want to see data on effectiveness compared with existing medicines and on how well patients tolerate it. Questions also remain about whether providers would be willing to adopt it.
"I really want to see that this is going to work well and deliver results for patients, but I also want to see that it's something that my patients can stay on long term," said Dr. Miranda Stiewig-Rapp, director of UC Davis Health's Obesity Clinic. "I'm probably overall very skeptical, but I'm happy to be proven wrong."
The potential cost of the implant and whether insurers would cover it remain unclear. That uncertainty makes it difficult to estimate what sales could look like in a GLP-1 market that some analysts project could exceed $100 billion by the early 2030s.
Novo Nordisk confirmed the agreement in a statement and said it is focused on complementing its internal research and development efforts with external partnerships. For Vivani, the deal with one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies represents a significant step for a small biotech navigating a crowded and fast-moving field.
