Pharmaceutical fat cats are already enjoying the blockbuster benefits of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, with drug firms raking in a hefty £20billion from them this year.
But real fat cats — and portly pups — could be a new group of ‘patients’ to benefit from the slimming jabs, according to experts.
British pets, much like their owners, are growing increasingly rotund, for many of the same reasons: they eat too much and aren’t getting enough exercise.
So it seems inevitable that as more and more people turn to weight-loss jabs like Wegovy and Ozempic, as well as rival Mounjaro, there is growing interest in using them on our four-legged friends.
Surveys suggest that the pet obesity crisis, much like the humans’ own battle with the bulge, is getting worse.
Portly pups could one day be getting an Ozempic like drug to help them slim down like their owners with some companies already investing millions in trials
Fat felines are also in pharma giants site with one clinical trial finding an Ozempic-like drug led to cats losing 5 per cent of their weight
An estimated 50 per cent of dogs and 43 per cent of cats are overweight or obese according nearly 150 vets surveyed by UK Pet Food.
And of the vets asked 77 per cent said they believe the prevalence of obesity among pets has increased.
Professor Alex German an expert in small animal medicine from the University of Liverpool who has been running a specialist obesity clinic for dogs and cats is one who thinks we could one day see our pets get drugs like Ozempic.
He believes semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy could, much like it does humans, restrict pets’ appetites and therefore be an effective treatment for obesity in some cases.
However, he added this would be contingent on it proven to be both safe and effective in animals in trials.
Professor German added that although diet drugs for pets have been launched in the past, an oral drug called Slentrol, and failed to take off, he believed owners, and vets, were more likely to accept them in the Ozempic-era.
‘The view that obesity in pets is the fault and responsibility of the owner is flawed as it can be genetic and is more complex than a failing owner. We should be supporting owners as best we can,’ he told The Telegraph.
Vet Alicia Fox-Pitt agreed, stating she could see it being used in scenarios when an owner is no longer able to exercise their pet or control their diet.
‘If a member of the household has dementia, they will often forget they’ve fed the dog,’ she said.
Unsurprisingly, drug companies are already exploring the potentially lucrative market of Ozempic for pets.
Wegovy works by triggering the body to produce a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 that is released naturally from the intestines after meals
In February, Better Choice, a pet pharmaceutical company, announced it was doing just that.
‘The goal of the research and development work is to mirror the weight loss benefits of leading brands for domestic animals and in humans including Slentrol, Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro with added protein and nutrients from the Company’s halo products to promote lean muscle and overall pet health,’ a company statement said.
Better Choice is putting its money where its mouth is, planning to spend $1.5 million (£1.185million) on trials for a pet-based GLP-1 agonist, the class of drugs Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro belong to.
Some companies are already trialling them. In May this year biotech company Okava Pharmaceuticals announced the results of a small trial where they implanted cats with a GLP-1 agonist delivery system and then measured their weight for 112 days.
At the end of the study, published in the journal BMC Veterinary Research and which involved five cats, four of them lost 5 per cent of their body weight.
However, Professor German said he would still likely advise pet owners embark weight reduction diet to help overweight animals lose weight.
Such a method he employs for dogs involves special food, exercise programmes depending on the breed and size of the pet, and methods to prolong eating such as puzzle feeders where the animal has to manually extracted food from a special bowl.
He argued this can lead overweight pets to lose 20 to 25 per cent of their body weight, and leads to them having greater mobility and quality of life.
‘A therapeutic diet is safe and effective. Given that we already have an option that can work as well as drug therapy, why rush to use [weight loss drugs]?,’ he said.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advises that dogs should get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day.
Advice for cats is a bit more broad, but the charity states our feline friends should still have plenty of opportunity for exercise such as climbing and playing every day.
GLP-1 agonists work by mimicking a hormone they body naturally releases to tell us that we are full.
Weekly jabs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have proven to very effective in helping obese people shed excess pounds, with some people losing up to 22.5 per cent of their weight while on them.
However, like any drug, there are reported side effects including some Hollywood A-listers reportedly losing control of their bowel movements.
Officials also recommend people put on them take them for life, otherwise users may simply pile the pounds back on a rule that may also apply for pets taking the drugs.
Drugs like Ozempic were originally designed to help people with diabetes manage their condition, but it was discovered the treatment also led to weight loss.
Huge demand, including amongst those taking it for cosmetic reasons, has led to some diabetes patients running out.
While production is being ramped up opening up the market to pets could stretch supplies even further.
Sky-high demand has also led to pharma giant Novo Nordisk to enjoy a massive boom in profits thanks to the huge hunger for the jabs Ozempic and Wegovy.
Earlier this year the Danish firm revealed it was making £32million per day, as countries grappling with the financial cost of flab fight to get their hands on the jabs.
Analysis suggests that combined sales of the company’s Ozempic and Wegovy brands have generated £20.5 billion this year.
Ozempic contains the active ingredient semaglutide, and while classed as a diabetes medication, has been used by some people to lose weight. Could we soon it being given to pets?
British pets are doing better than their owners when it comes to keeping the flab off with overall, two thirds of all British adults now too fat.
Obesity has been well established as increasing the risk of serious health conditions that can damage the heart, such as high blood pressure, as well as cancers.
Being too fat has been estimated to cause one in 20 cancer cases in Britain, according to the Cancer Research UK.
Britain’s obesity crisis is also estimated to cost the nation nearly £100billion per year.
This colossal figure includes the health harms on the NHS as well as secondary economic effects like lost earnings from people taking time off work due to illness and early deaths.