The makers of Ozempic and Wegovy have received government approval to sell their products to reduce the risk of heart attacks, heart disease and stroke. This could help expand insurance coverage for highly popular drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration said in a press release that Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind the hugely popular injectable weight loss drug, has received the first approval for heart health specifically for people who are overweight or obese. Announced.

“Wegovy has also been approved for use in the prevention of life-threatening cardiovascular events in obese or overweight adults with cardiovascular disease,” John Sharetz, the FDA’s diabetes and obesity leader, said in a press release. “This is the first weight-loss drug.” “This patient population is at high risk for cardiovascular death, heart attack, and stroke. Providing treatment options proven to reduce this cardiovascular risk is a major advance for public health.”

Last August, Novo announced that semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wigovy and Ozempic, showed significant benefits for heart health in large-scale human trials. Specifically, the 2.4 milligram dose used in Wegovy showed an association with lower heart disease risk compared to the 1 mg version used in Ozempic.

This beneficial use of a drug belonging to a class of drugs known as GLP-1 agonists, which mimic the feeling of fullness in the stomach, is just the latest in a growing list of semaglutide’s positive side effects. , it has been tempered by a rap sheet of mild to severe problems associated with it.

Semaglutide has become so popular in the nearly three years since the FDA approved the high-dose Wegovy injection as a weight-loss treatment that insurance companies are showing reluctance to shell out big bucks for it. Despite this, semaglutide continues to disappear from store shelves. Either ignore it or look for unregulated and dangerous gray market alternatives.

In an interview with NPRMartha Gulati, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, estimates that up to 70 percent of patients may be eligible for the drug, but many insurance companies still do not currently cover the drug. does not cover.

“My hope is that insurance companies will start to understand that this is not a vanity drug,” Gulati said.

More details on the benefits of semaglutide: Semaglutide can slow the progression of diabetic kidney disease