Why have FDA-approved anti-obesity drugs largely failed, at a time when two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese?Physicians, payers, and patients all have a role.
The numbers are almost redundant at this point, but here we go: More than two-thirds (70.7 percent) of U.S. adults are considered to be overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Close to 40 percent are obese, possessing a BMI of 30 or above.
It's a disease that foremost impacts morbidity, not mortality. However, it's crushing financially. A 2014 McKinsey & Company report put the global economic burden of obesity at $2 trillion a year, a figure that is rapidly rising. Not surprisingly the U.S. domestic market for weight-loss products is also huge. Marketdata Enterprises estimates consumers spend around $60 billion a year on largely unproven goods and services.
