Empros enters late stage clinical development of obesity treatment EMP16
Empros Pharma AB has initiated their third clinical trial for their anti-obesity treatment, EMP16. This is a phase 2b trial and follows an earlier successful Proof-of-concept trial.
A global change
Overweight and obesity is a growing global problem affecting an estimated 1.5 billion overweight and 500 million obese individuals (defined as a body mass index, BMI, of 30 or greater). In the USA and across Europe between 30-70% of the population are overweight (BMI of 25.0-29.9) and overweight and obesity have become the fifth leading risk for death globally. Among the most troubling obesity-related trends is also an almost 50% increase of overweight children and adolescents during the last decades.
Despite the clearly identified health issues, physicians lack a sufficient tool-box of treatments to be able to halt and reverse the trend. The treatment alternatives are far from adequate when taking their effect as well as safety into consideration. Life style interventions, the first line treatment, have low compliance and consequently poor long-term effects. Bariatric surgery, the last resort treatment, is effective but irreversible, and may result in multiple severe adverse effects. Recent years of drug development are gradually adding valuable tools to the treatment toolbox. The reimbursement system is undergoing a change where pharmaceutical treatments of obesity are covered by insurances. The mindset of prescribers is changing and pharmaceutical treatments of obesity is becoming more common. As a consequence of the market growth many of the Big Pharma companies have an active obesity pipeline.
Body mass index (BMI) is defined as the body weight (in kg) in divided by the square of body height (in meters); kg/m2. Overweight is defined as BMI of 25.0-29.9 kg/m2. Obesity is defined as BMI above 30 kg/m2.
EMP16 – A NEW APPROACH TO FIGHTING OBESITY
Empros Pharma has developed a revolutionary oral drug – EMP16. The main mechanism of action for EMP16 is to delay normal food digestion and absorption processes towards the end of the small intestine. EMP16 thereby support and increase the natural endogenous satiety response present in the gastrointestinal system to regulate food intake. An important distinction to other, often hormone-based satiety regulating pharmaceuticals (that will act on one or a few of the hormone signaling pathways) is that EMP16 enhances the entire endogenous hormone response in a physiological way. Empros Pharma expects EMP16 to be a safer and more potent method to address the medical need of obese patients.
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