Novo Nordisk said patients taking a bigger dose of its blockbuster obesity drug lost more weight than those on a lower dose, without experiencing an increase in side effects.

People who stayed on a 7.2 milligram weekly dose of semaglutide lost around 20% of their body weight over 72 weeks.

Novo Nordisk said on Friday a late-stage trial with a high-dose version of its weight loss drug semaglutide helped overweight patients lower their weight by 20.7%.

The first study to assess how weight-loss drugs affect the whole of human health has discovered an "eye-opening" impact on the body, researchers say. The analysis, involving about two million people,

A trial exploring the use of a higher dose of Novo Nordisk's GLP-1 agonist semaglutide has shown that patients with obesity who were taking the drug were able to shed more than a fifth of their body weight.

Wegovy, the weight-loss brand of semaglutide, has a recommended maintenance dose of 2.4 mg. Novo ran the Phase III STEP UP trial to evaluate the effect of increasing the maximum dose to 7.2 mg. The trial randomized 1,407 adults with obesity, but not diabetes, to receive either 7.2 mg or 2.4 mg of semaglutide or placebo.

Novo Nordisk said patients taking a bigger dose of its blockbuster obesity drug lost more weight than those on a lower dose, without experiencing an increase in side-effects.

Raising the dose of Novo Nordisk A/S’s obesity drug Wegovy helped patients shed more pounds in a trial while still falling short of the weight loss seen with rival Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound.

Tripling the dosage of the Wegovy weight-loss drug leads to more weight loss, Novo Nordisk said Friday. The Danish drugmaker announced results from a Phase 3B trial of semaglutide at a 7.2 milligram dosage,