31 March (Reuters) (Reuters) – The European Medicines Agency said on Friday that the committee’s recommendation is an increase in the dosage of Danish manufacturer Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO) medication for weight loss for adolescents 12 years old or more.
The company said to Reuters that the Committee for Medical Drugs For Human Use’s (CHMP) favorable opinion is an “important acknowledgment of the need for medical treatment that is not being met in adolescents who are obese as well as the need for further treatments”.
Novo’s Wegovy, which is a semaglutide based medication, stimulates GLP-1, which is a hormone that causes an experience of fullness inside the body when you eat. It’s been approved in both the U.S. and European Union to treat obesity in adults.
The company didn’t provide the date it will take to begin the process of launching the drug. which is already within Denmark and Norway and in different EU countries.
In the past year it was reported that earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics also advised the use of weight loss drugs for children 12 years old and older, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s December approval of the medicine for those in that age group.
reporting by Radhika Anilkumar, Bhanvi Satija from Bengaluru as well as Nikolaj Skydsgaard from Copenhagen and Editing by Shinjini Ganguli Kirsten Donovan
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