WHO urges countries to make drugs such as Mounjaro more accessible to people and asks drugs companies to lower prices
Weight loss drugs such as Mounjaro offer huge potential to tackle soaring obesity globally that will affect 2 billion people worldwide by 2030, the World Health Organization has said.
Their proven effectiveness in helping people lose weight means the medications represent “a new chapter” in how health services can treat obesity and the killer diseases it causes, the WHO added.
Its statement urged countries to do what they could to ensure that people who would benefit from glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) therapies could access them. But while eligible adults generally should get them, pregnant women should not use them, the WHO stated.
It also warned that pharmaceutical companies would have to lower the prices they charge for Mounjaro, Ozempic and similar drugs and hugely expand production of them to avoid people in the world’s poorer countries being denied them.
