Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug Zepbound found to reduce sleep apnea, company says

Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug Zepbound has been shown to reduce obstructive sleep apnea in obese adults, the drugmaker said in a statement Wednesday.

Obstructive sleep apnea affects approximately 39 million adults in the United States, according to the National Council on Aging.

This occurs when a person’s upper airway becomes blocked during sleep, cutting off airflow throughout the night, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Obesity, which can narrow the airways, can increase a person’s risk.

If left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure and death.

Lilly’s findings were based on two studies of adults with obesity and moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. The results were announced in a press release and have not been published in a medical journal or reviewed by outside scientists.

Researchers examined whether Zepbound worked better than a placebo by reducing the number of times per hour, on average, that a person partially or completely stopped breathing during sleep.

In the first study, participants did not use PAP, or positive airway pressure, machines, which gently blow air into the airways to keep them from collapsing. People in the second study used PAP machines.

Researchers found that after 52 weeks, Zepbound resulted in an average reduction of 27.4 events per hour in people who did not use PAP devices, compared to a reduction of 4.8 events per hour for people on placebo.

Among people who used PAP devices, Zepbound resulted in an average reduction of 30.4 events per hour, compared to an average reduction of 6 events per hour for the placebo group.

In both trials, people on Zepbound lost an average of about 20% of their body weight, which Lilly said helped reduce episodes of sleep apnea.

“Tirzepatide has the potential to be the first pharmaceutical treatment for the underlying disease,” Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president of product development at Lilly, said in the release.

Dr. Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist and senior medical director of the Office of Population Health Management at Duke Health in North Carolina, who was not involved in the studies, applauded the research, saying the results show that Obesity “is not a question of vanity. »

“This is about treating a major health problem that significantly reduces morbidity and mortality,” she said.

She said the findings could make insurance companies less reluctant to provide coverage for weight-loss drugs.

Last month, Medicare announced it would cover Wegovy for some patients after finding it reduced the risk of heart disease.

Lilly said she plans to share additional details about the study results at the American Diabetes Association conference in June.

He plans to submit the results to the Food and Drug Administration midyear.