Financial Union, May 24 (Editor Xia Junxiong) A late-stage trial data released on Friday showed thatpennslammeriiisla5500Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Ozempic can slow the progression of chronic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetespennslammeriiisla5500, can effectively reduce the risk of kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and death.
Data showed that compared with the placebo control group, patients taking Ozempic had a significantly slower decline in renal function, had a 18% reduction in risk of major heart disease problems, and a 20% reduction in risk of death from any cause.
The European Kidney Association published the data, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and involved 3533 patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
Ozempic and Novo Nordisk's star weight-loss drug Wegovy contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide, which belongs to a class of drugs called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1).
Novo Nordisk predicted the effect of Ozempic in treating chronic kidney disease as early as March this year, and said the drug could reduce the combined risk of renal complications and cardiovascular disease in diabetic patients by 24%.
Ozempic is currently only approved for the treatment of diabetes, and Novo Nordisk expects to apply this year to expand the drug's treatment in the U.S. and European Union.
The latest research results highlight the close connection between kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and the fatal consequences of all three diseases simultaneously. Vlado Perkovic, a nephrologist and provost of the University of South Wales in Sydney, led the study.
"The fact that semigroutide can improve all of these symptoms and extend the life of this group of people gives us hope," Perkovic said.
Obesity is often the cause of a range of chronic diseases, which the American Heart Association calls cardio-renal metabolic syndrome.
"Heart disease leads to kidney disease, which increases the risk of heart disease, and metabolic disease affects all of these diseases," said Rahul Aggarwal, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
According to data from the American Institute for Health Indicators and Evaluation (IHME), nearly 200,000 people in the United States will develop chronic kidney disease due to type 2 diabetes in 2021. Since 1990, the incidence has doubled.