February 20, 2004
At the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions scheduled to take place in early March, among the most anticipated studies to be presented are those involving rimonabant (trade name: Acomplia, from Sanofi-Synthelabo). Rimonabant is the first of a new class of drugs that block the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1). The CB1 receptor is thought to play an important role in certain aspects of human behavior and metabolism - specifically, it is thought to play a role in obesity, smoking habits, and lipid and glucose metabolism. The two studies to be presented next month are designed to test the ability of rimonabant to cause weight loss in overweight patients, and smoking cessation in smokers.
In a highly unusual (and destined to be controversial) move, Sanofi saw fit to release the preliminary results of these two studies three weeks before the scheduled date of presentation. (Whether this early release of data has anything to do with the fact that Sanofi is engaged in a hostile takeover bid for Aventis, and thus needs to rapidly improve it's market position, is, of course, well beyond DrRich's area of expertise.)
In any case, the data that Sanofi released on rimonabant is impressive. In the first study, designed to measure the drug's ability to induce weight loss, 44% of patients who took rimonabant for 1 year lost more than 10% of their body weight.
And in the second study, looking at the drug's ability to help with smoking cessation, 36% of patients who stayed on the drug for 10 weeks had complete smoking abstinence during the final 4 weeks of the study.
Furthermore, patients treated with rimonabant tended to have increased HDL cholesterol levels (i.e., the "good" cholesterol) and reduced triglyceride levels.
A lot of questions remain to be answered about these studies. The data released so far is very sketchy. More will be known in 3 weeks with the release of a more complete data set. But if the results from this preliminary data description hold up under scrutiny, rimonabant - and other drugs under development also aimed at the CB1 receptor - may revolutionize the management of heart disease risk factors.
NOTE: An update of this article, with the latest information, is now available here.
