Reinsurance company Swiss Re said on Wednesday that widespread use of GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity could reduce the annual rate of death by
This class of medications known only by their physiological effects, the “incretin effect” (incretin mimetic) when I graduated from medical school in 1981, may reduce US mortality by 6.4%.
The first incretin mimetic available for clinical use was exenatide (Byetta). It was initially found in the saliva of Gila monsters. Exenatide has a high homology to human GLP-1 the first incretin mimetic to not only cause the incretin effect in healthy individuals but also in individuals with type 2 diabetes. And unlike GLP-1, exenatide is partially resistant to the enzyme that neutralizes GLP-1.
The first weekly incretin mimetic was dulaglutide (Trulicity). Dulaglutude is a unique fusion protein of a modified human GLP-1 peptide linked to a portion of a modified human immunoglobulin. The peptide itself was not effective until fused to the immunoglobulin.
I had the good fortune because I worked at Lilly to have helped develop these two medications.