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Could the FDA’s supplemental approval of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide for weight loss be a turning point for anti-obesity drugs? Could the FDA’s supplemental approval of Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide for weight loss be a turning point for anti-obesity drugs?

This review provides a summary of currently available pharmaceutical therapies for the treatment of obesity, along with an overview of the pipeline of products currently in development, and the key mechanisms on which the major development candidates are based. In particular, the recent increase in understanding of the role of gut peptides in energy homeostasis is highlighted as a promising source of potential future obesity therapies.

Despite high safety hurdles and a history of failure in the field, some drug firms remain cautiously optimistic for the next wave of experimental anti-obesity agents.

A wave of terminations of development programmes for cannabinoid receptor 1 blockers for obesity indicates the demise of a drug class that was once anticipated to yield blockbusters. Nevertheless, lessons learned might help salvage something for future such approaches.

Enormous progress has been made in the last half-century in the management of diseases closely integrated with excess body weight, such as hypertension, adult-onset diabetes and elevated cholesterol. However, the treatment of obesity itself has proven largely resistant to therapy, with anti-obesity medications (AOMs) often delivering insufficient efficacy and dubious safety. Here, we provide an overview of the history of AOM development, focusing on lessons learned and ongoing obstacles. Recent advances, including increased understanding of the molecular gut–brain communication, are inspiring the pursuit of next-generation AOMs that appear capable of safely achieving sizeable and sustained body weight loss., The development of therapies that are capable of safely achieving sizeable and sustained body weight loss has proved tremendously challenging. Here, Müller et al. provide an overview of the history of anti-obesity drug development, focusing on lessons learned, ongoing challenges and recent advances in the field.