The British Health Minister announced on Tuesday that the government will trial the use of weight-loss injections to help obese people suffering from unemployment return to the labor market.
Wes Streeting said obesity, which affects millions of Britons, causes people to take an additional four days off sick and places a huge burden on the state-run NHS.
The minister wrote in the Telegraph newspaper that the rise in obesity rates in Britain “also imposes a huge burden on our health service, as it costs the National Health Service 11 billion pounds ($14.37 billion) annually, that is, more than the burden resulting from smoking.”
At an international investment summit on Monday, the British government announced an investment of 279 million pounds ($365 million) by the American multinational company Eli Lilly.
This investment includes a 5-year trial of Monjaro, a weight loss injection manufactured by Eli Lilly, on up to 3,000 patients, including obese, unemployed people.
A comparative study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in July showed that patients who took Monjaro achieved significantly greater weight loss than those who used Ozambik and Wigovi needles manufactured by the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.
“The long-term benefits of these drugs could be enormous in our approach to treating obesity,” Streeting said.
Unhealthy lifestyles
He has announced other measures to prevent “unhealthy lifestyles” since the Labor government took power in July, including a ban on fast food advertising targeting children.
More than a quarter of adults in the United Kingdom were obese in the year ending in 2023, according to government data, and the percentage rose to 26.2% after it was 22.6% in 2015 and 2016.
A 2022 World Health Organization report showed that the UK has higher obesity rates than every EU country except Malta.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that weight-loss drugs are “very important for the economy so that people can return to work.”
“This is very important for the NHS, because as I have said repeatedly, yes, we need more money for the NHS, but we have to think differently,” Starmer told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday.
The Public Health Advisory Panel recommended that the Mongaro program be rolled out in phases by the NHS, with initial plans to enable 250,000 people to access these injections within three years.