Obesity Drugs Are Pharma's Hot New Trend

Hi, it’s Bob. I just came back from the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, where obesity drugs were a hot new topic of conversation. But first...

At a different job 25 years ago, I spent months reporting on a diet drug combo called fen-phen. At the time, drugmakers were eager to come up with patented drugs that could duplicate the success of fen-phen. Then one of the drugs in the combo was linked to heart disease and deaths and it all came crashing down.

For a long time, obesity drug development was out of favor as Big Pharma focused on other lucrative arenas such as cancer. Now obesity medicines are making a roaring comeback, thanks to a new class of diabetes drugs that also turn out to be surprisingly potent weight loss agents. And at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference last week, obesity medicines were a major focus, as I reported with my colleague Emma Court.