The pharmaceutical firm Vivus have announced that data on their new diet pills Qnexa will be released today at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, which will be taking place in Vienna in Austria.
Last month Vivus published very promising phase 3 data taken from their two-year clinical trial. The results showed that Qnexa promoted weight loss, as well as causing patients to experience improvements in their blood sugar, blood pressure and lipid levels.
While the medication is already in stage III trials as a diet pill, Vivus also hope to receive FDA approval to market it as a diabetes medication. Diabetes and obesity are very closely linked and medical experts have warned that as obesity increases worldwide, so too will the numbers of people developing type 2 diabetes.
The data Vivus plan to share with the conference is specific to the diet pill’s potential for combating diabetes. They have already announced that the medication significantly reduces patients haemoglobin, an indicator of blood sugar levels and it is already known that weight loss can improve people’s risk factors for the illness.
The president of Vivus, Leland Wilson, said in a press statement that he believed Qnexa had the potential to play an important role in the treatment of diabetes in the coming years.