Korean regulators have approved Saxenda, an antiobestic drug developed from Liraglutide, a major compound of GLP-1(Glucagon Peptide -1) analog diabetes therapy, Victoza.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS)_{식품의약품안전처} Friday approved the antiobestic therapy Saxenda 6mg(compound: Liraglutide ) made by Novo Nordisk Pharma_{노보노디스크} in Korea.

Saxenda has the same compound with the diabetes treatment Victoza but is half the size of the latter. It has been redeveloped based on the effect of Victoza to lose weight.

Doctors can prescribe Saxenda for the weight control of obese patients with 30kg/m2 or more on the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale, pre-diabetes patients, or overweight adult patients with the early-stage BMI between 27kg/m2 and 30 kg/m2 and also have one of the following accompanying diseases -- type 2 diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia diseases. Patients have to stop treatment if they don’t lose more than 5 percent of initial weight after they take 3mg of Saxenda a day for 12 weeks.

There were common side effects such as gastrointestinal troubles, including diarrhea, in clinical trials, and pancreatitis did not occur. Patients can’t take Victoza and other GLP-1 analogs at the same time

In the clinical trials for obese or overweight people without diabetes, the patient group that took Saxenda lost their weight by 4.5 percent on average one year after they took the drug. Especially, 64 percent of patients who took Saxenda showed at least 5 percent weight loss.

In other clinical trials for diabetics, patients who took Saxenda showed 4 percent weight loss, and 49 percent of those patients lost weights by at least 5 percent.

Based on these clinical results, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA) approved Saxenda as the antiobestic therapy in 2014.

According to SCALE’s research, almost half of 3,731 patients who took Saxenda 3mg for 56 weeks and lost weights by 5 percent or more maintained their weights for three years.

Reports showed the weight loss effect of Saxenda was the best among the antiobestic therapies released recently.

According to the metadata research of antiobestic therapy in JAMA in 2016, Saxenda took the second place in weight loss effect following Qsymia.

Obesity is one of the major causes to generate chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and to increase mortality rates by causing stroke, myocardial infarction, and cancer.

Notably, Saxenda is drawing keen attention in that it can help lose weight for overweight diabetes patients.