EU regulator to discuss anaesthesia risk for weight-loss drugs

FRANKFURT, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will discuss the risk that patients on Wegovy, Ozempic or similar drugs may suffer certain complications under anaesthesia that can lead to pneumonia, according to an agenda posted on the regulator's website...

The regulator's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), which monitors drugs' side effects, will discuss at its monthly series of meetings this week a new "signal of aspiration and pneumonia aspiration" associated with the class of weight-loss and diabetes drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, according to the document posted late on Monday.. A surge in demand for its weight-loss drug Wegovy has helped drugmaker Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO) become Europe's most valuable listed company, but it is scrambling to boost production to keep up with overwhelming prescription numbers...

Diabetes drug Ozempic, a lower-dose version of Wegovy and part of the GLP-1 class, has also seen a boost in demand from off-label use for weight loss...

But individual cases have recently been described in medical journals where patients on GLP-1 receptor agonists were found not to have an empty gastric tract during surgery despite prior fasting, creating the risk of aspiration and pneumonia...

In July, the EMA began investigating GLP-1 drugs after Iceland's health regulator flagged three cases of patients thinking about suicide or self-harm..

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