Semaglutide: The first anti-obesity agent shown to decrease cardiovascular events

Abstract

The anti-obesity agent, semaglutide (2.4 mg/week) was evaluated in a large (n=17,604) multinational randomized trial called SELECT to examine its effects on cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in obese patients with overweight with preexisting CV disease and no diabetes. The primary outcome was a composite of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), and nonfatal stroke. Over a mean duration of follow-up of 39.8 months, a primary CV outcome occurred in 6.5% in the semaglutide group and 8.0% in the placebo group; hazard ratio (HR) 0.80 (95% CI, 0.72 to 0.90; p