The Government has announced a five-year trial in Greater Manchester to test a weight loss drug’s impact on obesity and unemployment.
Mounjaro's manufacturer, Lilly - the world's largest pharmaceutical company - is investing £279m as part of the trial. The study will examine the drug’s impact on weight loss, diabetes prevention, the prevention of obesity-related complications and the impact on NHS use.
Announcing the trial, the Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, warned that obesity was creating increasing pressure on the healthcare system and called for effective treatments – using drugs like Mounjaro - to ease the burden. He said that unemployed people in the UK could be prescribed weight-loss jabs to help them ‘get back to work’.
‘Our widening waistbands are placing a significant burden on our health service, costing the NHS £11bn a year – even more than smoking. And it’s holding back our economy. Illness caused by obesity causes people to take an extra four sick days a year on average, while many others are forced out of work altogether.’
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According to the NHS's Health Survey for England, in 2022, 29% of adults in England were obese and 64% were deemed to be overweight. Obesity has also been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes, with the NHS spending around £10bn a year - 9% of its budget - to care for people with diabetes.
Mounjaro contains tirzepatide which works by regulating blood sugar and energy balance levels, helping to reduce appetite and prevent cravings. It is currently used to treat type 2 diabetes across the UK.
Streeting said that the weight-loss jabs would be ‘life-changing’ for people and the economy but added that individuals would still need to be responsible. ‘They must take healthy living more seriously’, as the ‘NHS can’t be expected to always pick up the tab for unhealthy lifestyles’.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed Streeting’s suggestion. ‘This drug will be very helpful to people who want to lose weight, need to lose weight, very important for the economy so people can get back into work.’
Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of the NHS also called weight-loss drugs a ‘gamechanger in supporting many more people to lose weight and reduce their risk of killer conditions like diabetes, heart attack and stroke’.
However, the Obesity Health Alliance (OHA), which represents health charities and royal medical colleges, has cautioned that the jabs are only ‘part of what should be a wider package of non-stigmatising care’.
According to the OHA, about four million people in England are eligible for Wegovy, but NHS projections estimate that by 2028, fewer than 50,000 people a year would get the treatment.
Katharine Jenner, director of the OHA, said: ‘We need to make sure that we are prioritising access based on greatest clinical need and not based on any other factors. People are having to seek private treatment and they're not getting the care and support package that they'd be expecting to get if you had any other sort of condition.’
Echoing her thoughts, Alfie Slade, government affairs lead at the OHA warned that ‘without urgent government intervention, we will fail to meet the needs of millions of patients, leading to greater health inequalities’.
Under current plans, Mounjaro will first be given to people with severe obesity – those with a body mass index score over 40 – and who have at least three health conditions linked to obesity such as heart disease, high blood pressure or obstructive sleep apnoea.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will publish its final guidance on Mounjaro and obesity later this year.