United States: A recent research performed by Harvard scientists came with the result that Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 analog semaglutide, the active ingredient present in drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, may result in NAION that can also cause eyes-sight loss.
However, one of the groups of analysts advises against overinterpretation of the analysis.
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The results stated that patients on semaglutide had a greater risk of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), which would be four to eight times higher than the patients on other drugs out of the non-GLP-1 group for diabetes and weight loss.
Harvard researchers did the research, and the results which came out last week were published in the JAMA Ophthalmology.
More about NAION
NAION is an eye condition characterized by reduced blood flow to the optic nerve, leading to vision impairment. It is the second most frequent cause of optic nerve injury.
A larger study is required
Although the study raise certain questions, hiowever Leerink Partners team led by David Risinger noted that they “do not expect this single analysis to impact prescribing trends” of Ozempic and Wegovy.
Moreover, the analysts wrote, “Larger retrospective studies, post-marketing analyses of GLP-1s, and/or prospective clinical trials would be required to confirm the findings,” as fiercepharma.com reported.
More about the study
The Harvard researchers initiated the trial following the reporting of instances of NAION among patients on semaglutide in clinical practice.
Thus, they assessed about 17,000 patients with the neuro-ophthalmologist in Massachusetts Eye and occupied from December 2017 to November 2023.
Thus, patients consuming either Ozempic or Wegovy are compared with non-consumers in terms of preexisting baseline characteristics that include NAION comorbidities.
Combined with the 710 Type 2 diabetic patients, the NAION cumulative incidence was 8.9 percent for semaglutide users and 1.8 percent in the non-GLP-1 group.
When 979 patients with overweight or obesity were analyzed, the rates at 36 months were 6.7 percent and 0.8 percent for the Novo’s med users and other non-GLP-1 treatment users, correspondingly.
Moreover, the authors also noted that Massachusetts Eye and Ear Clinic did include a specialized neuro-ophthalmology service to evaluate a large proportion of the Boston area’s NAION cases.
The study also wrote, “[T]herefore, our findings may not be fully generalizable to other settings,” as fiercepharma.com reported.