While the injected GLP-1 drugs are very effective in weight loss, they also bring some disadvantages. There may be gastrointestinal side effects and loss of muscle mass. These drugs are also expensive, before insurance, the United States is $1,000 or more a month. Pharmaceutical companies are interested in developing anti-obesity drugs because of the relatively cheap manufacturing cost compared to injections, and the fact that some patients prefer to take pills.
“There is still an unmet clinical need, and that’s where Eolo wants to help,” said María Pía Garat, CEO of the company.
Eolo is not completely planning to make weight loss pills. The company’s researchers initially tried to develop a drug that targets inflammation, especially in obesity and type 2 diabetes. But when they started testing their experimental medication in mice, it not only improved inflammation, but also resulted in weight loss on a high-fat diet. They had been doing experiments for 9 months and found that mice eventually lost their starting weight even when they were still eating the same high-fat diet.
In mice, Sana also retained lean muscle mass. MRI scans showed that mice treated with SANA had a larger lean body weight despite decreased fat compared to the control group.
“We already had stimulants before to try to increase your calorie production,” said Hans Schmidt, co-director of the Weight Loss and Metabolic Health Center at the Hackensack University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.
One of them is the fenfluramine-glitter combination of drugs called Fenpen, which was sold in the 1990s for weight loss but was disconnected from the market due to heart damage. “Those working on overall metabolism. They disturb you and make you energetic. This seems to work specifically at the cellular level on adipocytes,” he said.
Of course, Eolo’s research is small and needs to test the drug in more people to better understand its impact. The company plans to conduct a Phase II trial later this year, which will include about 100 participants with obesity and follow them for 12 weeks. They want the trial to be held in the United States. Garat believes that Eolo’s drug can eventually be used as a standalone approach or in combination with GLP-1 drugs to produce more weight loss.
“Now, when we need more tools, we’re going to bring backhoe to the construction site. We need more mechanisms like this, which are other ways beyond the road beyond the appetite,” said Angela Fitch, former president of the Obesity Medicine Association, co-founder and chief medical officer. Fitch does not participate in eolo.
Current GLP-1 can achieve up to 20% weight loss, and although it may be sufficient for some patients, others may still need more to reach a healthy weight. “New drugs are opportunities to have a greater impact,” she said.
