In June of 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug semaglutide for chronic weight management under the brand name Wegovy, ushering in a new era of obesity treatment. Since then, demand for Wegovy and the type 2 diabetes therapy Ozempic—which contains the same drug and has commonly been prescribed off-label for weight loss—have outpaced production, causing ongoing shortages of these injections. And on November 8 of this year, the FDA approved tirzepatide injections for weight management under the brand name Zepbound. The much-anticipated new antiobesity drug, which has been sold as Mounjaro for diabetes since last year, includes 2 active ingredients, one of them in the same drug class as semaglutide.
Amid this fervor, rare but serious adverse effects have recently emerged for this class of hormone-mimicking medications, called glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, receptor agonists, which in different forms have been on the market for diabetes treatment for almost 2 decades.
