FollowA new diet pill called Contrave received approval to sold in the United States. This is the third obesity treatment in more than ten years to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The new diet pill approved by the FDA was created by Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. and it’s a combination of an antidepressant called Bupropion and Orexigen’s own formulation of naltrexone, which is designed to prevent drug dependency.
The FDA had delayed its decision to approve the new diet pill due to concerns regarding the adequate warnings on the packaging. The new drug should have been approved in June of this year. Because the new diet pill Contrave contains an antidepressant, it will come with a warning about risks of suicidal thoughts and similar behaviors.
The new diet pill approved by the FDA joins other two diet drugs, Qsymia and Belviq. The two drugs were approved back in 2012. Although the two diet treatments were initially thought to be a real hit in the industry, the sales have not been that spectacular due to adverse effects such as depression and heart disease and marketing strategies.
The new diet pill approved by the FDA called Contrave is expected by the specialists to sell better than Belviq and Qsimia, with sales of more than $200 million in 2016.
There have been several clinical trials to test the efficiency of the new diet pill approved by the FDA. The tests included more than 4,500 participants who were obese or overweight and were observed while taking the new drug. The participants who were taking Contrave experienced an average weight loss of 4.1%, compared to the other participants who were taking a placebo pill. In this test 42% of the participants who took the new diet drug lost at least 5% of their body weight compared to 17% of the people who took the placebo pill.
The company did not say when the new diet pill will be available or how much it will cost.
