Read the primary source rather than the write-up and the two do not agree, so here is what is actually in it.
The phase 2 numbers were about 24% mean weight loss at 48 weeks on the top dose, with the curve still descending at the end of the study. A curve that has not flattened is a real finding, but it also means the true plateau is unknown, and phase 2 populations are small and selected.
Where I think it is weakest: the follow-up is short relative to how long people actually take these drugs, so durability is an assumption here rather than a finding.
The narrow version of the question is what the phase 2 dropout pattern implies about how the phase 3 tolerability will read. Numbers rather than impressions, if you have them.
Figures above are from the primary publication rather than the press summary. If a number here disagrees with one you have, post yours and we will work out which of us is reading a secondary source.
Dr.AddMedPHL said:The phase 2 numbers were about 24% mean weight loss at 48 weeks on the top dose, with the curve still descending at the end of the study.
That is right, and it stops being right at the edges. The general case is well behaved; the interesting cases in this thread are all at the boundary where the general case breaks.
Dr.AddMedPHL said:The phase 2 numbers were about 24% mean weight loss at 48 weeks on the top dose, with the curve still descending at the end of the study.
I would rather people stopped quoting the 24% as if it were a licensed outcome. It is a phase 2 result in a few hundred participants with no cardiovascular endpoint and no long-term safety data, and this board has a habit of treating pipeline numbers as settled.
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Browse GL BiochemAnswering the narrow version, because the broad one does not have a single answer. The glucagon component looks paradoxical and is not. Glucagon receptor agonism raises energy expenditure and drives hepatic fatty-acid oxidation, and its hyperglycaemic tendency is offset by the GLP-1 arm's insulin secretagogue effect. Net result: intake down from GLP-1/GIP, expenditure up from glucagon, glycaemia neutral or improved. It is a balancing act, and it is why the liver-fat results are the most interesting part of the dataset.
Dr.SurgeonPGH said:That is right, and it stops being right at the edges.
Mine went the same way, slower. Posting only so the count is not one.