Survodutide cuts weight, but side effects prompt dropouts

Boehringer Ingelheim’s investigational drug survodutide reduced body weight by as much as 13.1% over 76 weeks in adults with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to results from the Phase 3 SYNCHRONIZE2 trial. Gastrointestinal side effects led about 18% of participants receiving the drug to stop treatment, compared with 1.2% of those given a placebo. The trial tested once-weekly injections of survodutide at 3.6-milligram and 6-milligram doses against placebo. Under the efficacy-estimand analysis, average weight loss was 10.4% with the lower dose and 13.1% with the higher dose, compared with 3.1% for placebo. The results were presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study also found reductions in blood sugar, measured by HbA1c. One account of the results reported that HbA1c fell by up to 1.21 percentage points from a baseline of 7.4, compared with a smaller reduction for placebo.