Less than 10% of patients eligible to benefit from GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy have access to them, warns the World Health Organization as it issues its initial advice on the therapies.
Considering more than one billion people worldwide currently classified as obese, it is calling for increased and just availability to GLP-1 medication.
Per projections, more than two billion will be living with obesity by 2030 if no action is taken.
"The latest guidelines affirms that excess weight is a lifelong illness that can be managed with holistic and lifelong treatment," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Substantial prices, limited production capacity, and logistical bottlenecks are key barriers to universal availability to the treatments that can aid individuals in losing considerable body mass, notes the organization.
GLP-1 Therapy Scarcity
Even in the current most optimistic outlook, the manufacturing of these medications could only cover approximately 100 million people – under 10% of the global need, per the health organization.
The advice encourages nations and manufacturers to widen access, by approaches like licensing agreements.
The intellectual property rights on the active ingredient – the core component of the drug Wegovy – is set to lapse in several countries in 2026.
How Obesity Drugs Function
The injections replicate a natural hormone to slow digestion, curb appetite and boost satiety so individuals eat less.
Patients typically see weight reduction in the initial weeks of commencing the weekly injections.
Evidence points to people may put most of the weight back on within a year of halting the drug, when their normal appetite resume.
To be above a healthy weight increases your chance for developing health problems, like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, brain attack, and certain cancers.
Excess weight concerns people in all nations and was associated with millions of fatalities worldwide in 2024, as per the health agency.
