Data from Qnexa study presented at World Diabetes Congress

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Obese diabetes patients could experience weight loss when taking Vivus' anti-obesity drug, according to an oral presentation at the International Diabetes Federation's World Diabetes Congress in Dubai.

The presentation, given by Nancy Bohannon — director of clinical research at the cardiovascular risk reduction program at St Luke's Hospital in San Francisco and scientific advisory board member at Vivus — said that when analyzing a subset of patients enrolled in the CONQUER study, 147 of them had diabetes and a body mass index greater than 35. Among this population, 33% experienced excess weight loss when taking Vivus' Qnexa over a 56-week treatment period, compared with 7.4% of patients in the placebo group. The weight loss also was highly correlated to improvements in glycemic parameters, including fasting glucose, fasting insulin and hemoglobin A1C.

Additionally, normalization of glucose levels and withdrawal of all antidiabetic medications occurred in 15% of patients treated with full dose Qnexa, compared with 2% that were treated with placebo.

Excess weight loss typically is reported in patients who have undergone weight-loss surgery, Bohannon said.

"Multiple options are needed to address the parallel epidemics of diabetes and obesity, and Qnexa could be a potential nonsurgical approach to both treat obesity and improve glycemic control in obese diabetic patients," she said.

The safety profile in this subpopulation, based on reported adverse events, is consistent with that seen in the whole study population, the presentation noted. The most common adverse events seen were constipation, upper respiratory infection and tingling.

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