A new diet drug, Qnexa, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, becoming the agency’s latest move to give doctors and their patients more tools to fight excessive weight gain as obesity rates continue to swell in the U.S. and across the globe. In February, an advisory panel voted 20 to 2 to give the drug the green light, the first time the FDA voted to approve a weight-loss drug in more than a decade. Qnexa’s manufacturer, Vivus, presented data that illustrated the drug helped patients lose nearly 10 percent of their body weight.
“Considering the heavy toll of obesity in our society, this agent has tremendous potential,” said Dr. Chip Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehab and prevention at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. The approval of the new drug on Tuesday drew both praise and criticism, showing concern over the drug’s side effects as well as the need to give patients more choices beyond diet, exercise, and bariatric surgery. About a third of Americans are overweight. “I do think it will help a subpopulation lose weight. However, I am concerned that mass marketing of this drug will perpetuate the magic bullet approach to weight loss, which is limiting and does not address the root problem,” said Dr. Gerard Mullin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
