The next generation of groundbreaking weight loss drugs is just over the horizon – and they won’t require needles.
Roughly 12 million people have taken Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, or their generic versions to shed pounds, upending the paradigm for treating obesity.
They have become household names, with celebrities endorsing them and ads’ made of catchy jingles playing in loops on people’s TVs.
The drugs come as solutions in jars or pre-filled syringes that require the user to inject themselves once a week, a high barrier for people afraid of needles.
However, the latest innovation in obesity medicine won’t come in a syringe. It will be available in less invasive creams and patches, known as transdermal drug delivery systems.
Dr Nicholas Perricone, a prominent dermatologist and anti-aging expert who has worked in transdermal drug platforms for decades, said the technology could be leveraged to help millions of people uneasy about needles benefit from these drugs and drop weight.
He is currently working on a gel formulation of tirzepatide, the compound that makes up Mounjaro, and hopes to work with Eli Lilly – the maker of Mounjaro – to scale it up ‘because I think it would be unique, and I’m sure that it would definitely work.’
Research is underway to develop a thumbnail-sized patch loaded with tiny needles that contains potent doses of weight-loss-inducing medicine. These barely there needles will penetrate the skin without reaching deeper pain receptors and blood vessels – making them ideal for people with even the worst fear of needles.
Dr Nicholas Perricone, a prominent dermatologist and anti-aging expert who has worked in transdermal drug platforms for decades, is developing a topical gel formulation of tirzepatide – the main ingredient in Mounjaro
Dr. Perricone’s lab is developing a topical gel formulation of tirzepatide.
‘You can certainly traverse the skin, getting to the dermalvascular [blood vessels deep in the skin], get it circulating, so that you get the benefits without a needle,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘You just put it on your wrist, and you rub your wrists together, and within about a minute, it’s inside. It goes into the skin and then circulates [throughout the body].’
For now, the gel is highly experimental. It still needs to undergo preclinical trials and human trials before entering the FDA’s approval pipeline.
But Dr Perricone’s tirzepatide gel is not the only weight loss topical on the horizon.
Las Vegas-based Skinvisible Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is working on a cream formulation of the active peptide in the ingredient that is in Ozempic and Wegovy – semaglutide – that penetrates the skin approximately 10 times better than standard topical drugs and steadily releases the medicine into the body over six hours.
In a trial testing the efficacy of mixing the medicine into a cream, scientists reported that nearly 70 percent of the key drug penetrated the skin layers at a steady dose.
The cream formulation contains the same peptide that makes semaglutide work, called a GLP-1 agonist, as well as a CB-1 receptor antagonist that reduces appetite and encourages the body to break down fat.
Skinvisible’s cream acts as a delivery system for the medication, holding onto the peptides and releasing them gradually.
It was applied to test skin in the lab, where scientists measured how much of the peptides permeated the deepest layers and for how long.
Boston-based Anodyne Nanotech is preparing to launch clinical trials of its HeroPatch, a sticker smaller than a postage stamp that on one side is covered in tiny, dissolvable needles, each about the width of a human hair
Las Vegas–based Skinvisible Pharmaceuticals is developing a cream version of the Ozempic peptide that absorbs 10 times better than typical topicals and delivers the drug steadily over six hours
They found about 10 percent of the medication that was mixed into the cream passed through the skin over the course of six hours – a steadier, more controlled dosing route than an injection.
Scientists are uncertain whether their innovative delivery system will prove effective in living tissue.
They have not yet tested it in people looking to lose weight and are not yet sure of its bioavailability – the amount of the drug actually used by the body before the rest is degraded and absorbed.
Needle injections of semaglutide have a bioavailability of 50 to 80 percent. However, scientists are not yet certain about the cream.
GLP-1 drugs have proven highly successful in trials, helping people lose on average around 15 to 20 percent of their body weight.
But because the injection delivers 100 percent of the medicine into the body at once, they also come with unpleasant side effects that force two out of three patients to stop taking them within a year of starting.
GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy have been known to cause severe stomach pain, vomiting, constipation, and diarrhea, with a large share of users saying these side effects have impacted their ability to live life normally.
This is what makes a topical formulation so appealing.
Researchers believe that, because topicals deliver a steady dose of medicine instead of flooding the bloodstream with the full dosage at once as injections do, people will be able to avoid the debilitating gastrointestinal effects.
Obesity drugs like Mounjaro come in pre-filled syringes that people administer four times per month
Meanwhile, Boston-based Anodyne Nanotech is preparing to launch clinical trials of its HeroPatch, a sticker smaller than a postage stamp that on one side is covered in hundreds of tiny, dissolvable needles, each about the width of a human hair.
Within the microneedles are concentrations of a proprietary GLP-1 agonist that works similarly to semaglutide.
It painlessly penetrates the skin’s surface, and the needles begin to dissolve in the skin’s moisture, releasing their medicine payload gradually.
The surrounding fluid under the skin absorbs the medication, allowing it to seep into deeper layers.
After a few hours, the needles fully dissolve, leaving an empty patch that can be peeled off and thrown away.
The company concluded an animal trial last year, during which they found the patch delivered a dose equivalent to 3.6mg of semaglutide, higher than the highest maintenance dose for Wegovy (2.4mg).
One patch released medicine steadily for one week, according to the company, which has not released the preliminary results.
Jake Lombardo, Anodyne’s CEO and Co-Founder, said: ‘We envision the HeroPatch not only as a game-changer for GLP-1 delivery, but also as a versatile platform for other chronic disease treatments that could transform patient experiences and improve health outcomes worldwide.’