The next next weight-loss drug

Semaglutide: “I can help people lose 15% of their body weight!”

Tirzepatide: “Pshaw! I can help them lose 21% of their body weight!”

Retatrutide: “Hold my beer.”

After 48 weeks, Eli Lilly’s new, still-in-phase-2-testing drug, retatrutide, led to an average weight loss of more than 24% — we’re talking 57.8 pounds (14,797 drams).

How? By not just targeting GLP-1 (like semaglutide), and not just GLP-1 and GIP (like tirzepatide), but by targeting those two plus activating of glucagon receptors, which help regulate blood sugar.

Next up: Four different phase-3 studies.

Speaking of weight-loss drugs…

In what’s not entirely a surprise, it turns out that higher doses of semaglutide do a better job helping with blood sugar and weight loss.

[O]nce-daily oral semaglutide taken at 25 milligrams and 50 mg did a better job in lowering blood sugar levels and promoting weight loss than the lowest dose of 14 mg.

We didn’t include a photo. You’re welcome.

Lots of people lose hair where they want to keep it, but sometimes you get hair where you don’t want it. Say, for example, on a hairy mole.

It takes a special kind of person to look at such a hairy mole and think, “I wonder if the secret to treating hair loss lies within?” And yet that’s just what some UC Irvine researchers did … for a decade. All because they realized that some of those ugly moles — called nevi — can “induce luxurious hair growth.”

Over some 10 years of work, the researchers identified a chemical released by a mole’s pigmented cells that “potently stimulates hair follicle stem cells for robust hair growth.” That molecule is osteopontin.

[…]

The secreted osteopontin interacts with a molecule on the stem cells called CD44, apparently flipping the hair-growing switch to “gonzo.”

Tests continue with a hope of creating, say, a biannual injection that would cause hair to pop out where it’s wanted — but sans the mole part.

Bonus: Includes the phrase “game-changer.”

A new path for gene therapy

You wouldn’t think there could be “An Unexpected Doorway into the Ear,” but here we are. And the good thing about this particular door is that it can be used (Rochester University researchers found) to “deliver a gene therapy that repairs inner ear hair cells [and] restore hearing in deaf mice.”

Using gene therapy this way isn’t a new idea, but the problem was reaching the cochlea without surgery. But now with the cochlear aqueduct, they were able to do that, injecting a virus that carried a gene therapy into the inner ear. That therapy was able to fix the ear’s hair cells and restore hearing … to mice, at least.

Europe prepares for the next one

The EU has made a deal with Pfizer (and others) to reserve vaccine-making capacity for the next pandemic — whatever that pandemic might be.

“The agreement covers mRNA, vector-based and protein-based vaccines [and] ensures that companies are ready to respond to a crisis by keeping their facilities up to date and monitoring their supply chains, ‘including stockpiling where necessary’.”

A better way to deliver mRNA

mRNA vaccines work great, as we’ve learned, and are being used to treat other diseases, notably cancer. But they could be better.

mRNA vaccines are very good at getting muscle cells to generate an antibody response, but what you really want is a longer-lasting T cell response. To do that you need to activate dendric cells — the ones that teach T cells to attack … well, whatever you want attacked.

Muscles are low on those dendric cells, but the spleen has plenty, and now Johns Hopkins researchers have developed an intricate little nanoparticle wrapper for mRNA that that can find its way to the spleen where it “was taken up by primary dendritic cells at levels about fifty-fold higher than mRNA by itself.”

This means they may have found a way to make mRNA vaccines more effective by creating not just antibodies, but (in this case) “an army of T-cells that can recognize cancer-linked antigen.”

The Long Read: Why is hep C still a thing?

We can cure hepatitis C, and treating it is expensive. So why haven’t we ended it? The cost (at least in the US) is a big part, but it’s not the only issue. Read on, MacDuff.

Short Takes

Toothpaste as bacteria killer

Israeli researchers found that adding a “natural” molecule called 3,3´-Diindolylmethane (bisindole to its friends) to toothpaste will kill the biofilms formed by bacteria that cause plaque and cavities, reducing it by 90%.

“The molecule, which was found to have low toxicity, could be added to toothpastes and mouthwashes to greatly improve dental hygiene.”

Not enough for you? Bisindole also has anti-cancer properties.

Dark future for PhRMA

No matter who wins the 2024 presidential election, pharmaceutical companies face and uphill battle.

“There is no leading candidate that’s a friend of the pharmaceutical industry at this point. Not DeSantis, not Trump, not Biden.”

Mo fo’ LoDoCo

Low-dose colchicine (LoDoCo, seriously) — the gout med — just got FDA approval “to be used in low dose to prevent cardiovascular events in patients with proven coronary disease.”