Carbon Emission Impact of Semaglutide in People with Obesity in the UK Using a Disease Modelling Approach

Funding and conflicts

Funding

not reported in abstract

Industry funded

Unclear

Manufacturer

Novo Nordisk

Sponsor role

not reported in abstract

Author conflicts

Declarations. Conflicts of interest/competing interests: Christopher Lübker and Niels Lund are employees and shareholders of Novo Nordisk A/S. Andreas Rasche is a member of the Novo Nordisk Sustainability Advisory Council (contract-based). Weiwei Xu, Loveleen Taneja, Anamaria-Vera Olivieri, Suramya Shukla, and Yuvraj Sharma are full-time employees of IQVIA. Matthew Taylor is employed by York Health Economics Consortium which has received funding from Novo Nordisk in the last three years. Ethics approval: This work is based on previously conducted studies and publicly available data sources. It does not involve any original experiments or studies with human or animal subjects. Consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Availability of data and material: The data supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because of privacy or ethical restrictions. Code availability: Not applicable. Authors’ contributions: NL: conception and study design, acquisition of data, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation; CL: acquisition of data, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation; AR: data interpretation; MT: data interpretation; WX: conception and study design, acquisition of data, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation; LT: conception and study design, acquisition of data, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation; SS: conc

Independent replication

unknown

Notes

Authors declare relationships with the drug's manufacturer: Novo Nordisk

Funding is shown on every study and never used to score it.

The source, as retrieved

Abstract

[OBJECTIVE] We aimed to assess the carbon footprint and clinical outcomes of once-weekly semaglutide in people with overweight or obesity in the UK using a disease modelling approach. [METHODS] A per-patient carbon footprint analysis was conducted to estimate emissions related to obesity management with semaglutide 2.4 mg as an add on to diet and exercise versus diet and exercise alone. A Markov state-transition cohort model (Core Obesity Model) was used for the analysis. Data were sourced from STEP and SELECT trials across three populations: (1) body mass index [BMI] ≥ 30 or ≥ 27 with one or more obesity-related complications (BMI30+/BMI27+C), (2) BMI ≥ 27 with one or more complications, including type 2 diabetes mellitus (BMI27+C), and (3) BMI ≥ 27 with established cardiovascular disease (BMI27+CVD). Carbon emissions were estimated using resource-based and cost-based methods. Key outcomes included life-years, quality-adjusted life-years, and incremental carbon footprint effectiveness ratio. [RESULTS] In the BMI30+/BMI27+C and BMI27+C populations, semaglutide was dominant, yielding 0.30 and 0.25 additional life-years, 0.51 and 0.46 additional quality-adjusted life-years, while reducing lifetime carbon emissions by 1.8% (9850 vs 10,030 kg of CO2 equivalent [CO2e]) and 1.9% (9792 vs 9983 kg CO2e), respectively. Manufacturing emissions of semaglutide were offset by reductions in carbon emissions resulting from fewer obesity-related complications. In the BMI27+CVD population, semaglutide improved life-years by 0.56 and quality-adjusted life-years by 0.59, but emissions increased (14,700 vs 14,444 kg CO2e) because of longer survival and increased monitoring. Scenario and sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the results. [CONCLUSIONS] Semaglutide offers both clinical and environmental benefits in obesity management, supporting the UK's net-zero emissions goals.

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