The UK company, Vernalis, announced on Sept. 13th ,that they are developing a new diet drug that it’s similar to Rimonabant, V24343, and it had produced “outstanding weight loss” in persons in two small phase I at the clinical trials.As an exemple one patient lost 24 pounds in a couple of weeks.

The Vernalis medication, just as Rimonabant, is a CB-1 receptor antagonist which is acting by targeting the CB-1 receptor located in the brain and blocking a person’s desire to eat. Vernalis said that their results on the weight loss produced by the new drugits drug are compareble with results for rimonabant.

Average weight loss after 15 days was 1 pound for the overweight and mildly obese patients given a placebo, 5 pounds for those on a 5 mg dose of V24343 and 10 pounds for those on a 100 mg dose.

But Vernalis,the producer of the new drug ,rival of Rimonabant, said results for V24343 from its early tests showed “a reduced intensity for neurological adverse events” and “a lower rate of appearing of nausea and GI disturbance.”

In this time Rimonabant has been approved and is on sale in contries from Europe, and it will be soon in the United States

Vernalis declared that the worries over “risks off depression and this kind of disease, may be relevant to this sort of drug. Despite that fact, the question as to whether or not other CB-1 antagonists can improve efficacy but with the elimination of major side effects is still open.”

Merck and Pfizer,pharmaceutical giants are a very much ahead of Vernalis,another rival of Rimonabant in investigating this, with medications that target the CB-1 receptor located in the brain already in large phase III trials.

Vernalis CEO Simon Sturge, declared that his company was very happy by these preliminary results which, only if will be confirmed by some longer investigations, will bring significant benefits to overweight and obese persons,just or better than Rimonabant.

Rimonabant, a selective CB1 endocannabinoid receptor antagonist, may have potential in the prevention of type 2 diabetes, according to a study presented here at the 41st annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.Julio Rosenstock, MD, from the Dallas Diabetes Center in Texas, presented one-year data from the rimonabant prediabetes subgroup of patients who were enrolled in the RIO-Lipids, RIO-Europe, and RIO-North America phase 3 studies. These studies were multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials that asssessed 5 or 20 mg of rimonabant in overweight/obese patients. The primary end point of these pivotal studies was weight loss, and secondary end points included waist circumference, glycemic control, and lipid parameters.

For the prediabetes subgroup analysis of 1,290 subjects, prediabetes was defined as impaired fasting glucose (100-125 mg/dL).

Improvements among prediabetes subjects for multiple cardiometabolic risk factors, including high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and triglyceride levels, insulin resistance, waist circumference, and body weight were highly consistent with the published data on rimonabant.

Significant weight loss was seen in subjects with prediabetes taking rimonabant 5 mg (–3.2 kg, P = .002) and 10 mg (–6.9 kg; P < .001) compared with –1.7 kg for placebo. HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels improved significantly in subjects taking 20 mg of rimonabant.

There was a clear but not statistically significant trend for subjects with prediabetes taking riomonabant 20 mg to revert from impaired fasting glucose to normal glucose tolerance (46.5% for patients in the rimonabant group vs 39.2% for those in the placebo group).

“This is a useful indicator of what could be expected from a larger, long-term prospective study with rimonabant in subjects with prediabetes,” Paul Z. Zimmet, from the International Diabetes Institute in Caulfield, Victoria, Australia, told Medscape.

“Since two key drivers behind the development of type 2 diabetes are abdominal obesity and insulin resistance, and rimonabant improves both of these, this investigational drug could have an important role in therapy for the prevention of both type 2 diabetes and indeed cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Zimmet concluded.

  Suicide risk fears over diet pill  

The drug works by reducing appetite

A weight loss drug used by thousands of Britons has been rejected by US safety officials because of an increased risk of suicide.

Rimonabant, launched in the UK last summer, has been shown to aid weight loss by reducing appetite.

But a committee advising the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted to ban the pill, saying the manufacturers had failed to show it was safe.

European regulators will review the drug’s safety at an upcoming meeting.

Around 37,000 Britons have been prescribed rimonabant which can help users lose up to 10% of their body weight.

Rimonabant has a role, it should be used with care but directed towards the right patient it can be effective and safe.   Dr Ian Campbell, Weight Concern

The drug is currently recommended for obese patients with a risk of developing diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

It works by blocking receptors in the part of the brain that regulate food intake and the body’s ability to break down sugars and fats in the blood.

The National Institute of Clinical and Health Excellence (NICE) is currently appraising the drug for use on the NHS.

Safety concerns

The US committee of experts reviewed studies of rimonabant conducted around the world.

They told an FDA hearing that the drug is associated with an increased risk of suicidal thoughts even in those with no history of depression.

Studies had also highlighted significant increases in anxiety, insomnia, and panic attacks in patients given 20 mg of rimonabant compared with placebo.

A recent review of rimonabant by the Cochrane database concluded that more rigorous studies of efficacy and safety were required for a drug where the weight loss is “modest”.