UN company urges manufacturing of reasonably priced generics for GLP-1 medicine to deal with weight problems and diabetes in creating international locations.
Printed On 5 Sep 2025
The World Well being Group (WHO) has added a brand new set of medicine for weight problems and diabetes to its important medicines checklist, alongside remedies for most cancers and cystic fibrosis.
Low cost generic variations of the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicine must also be made out there for individuals in creating international locations, the United Nations company stated in a press release on Friday.
Beneficial Tales
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The checklist, consisting of 523 medicines for adults and 374 for kids, is a list of the medicine the WHO believes ought to be out there in all functioning well being programs.
“The brand new editions of important medicines lists mark a major step towards increasing entry to new medicines with confirmed medical advantages and with excessive potential for international public well being influence,” stated Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s assistant director-general for Well being Programs, Entry and Information.
The knowledgeable committee added the lively elements in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro to the checklist, to deal with sort 2 diabetes along with established heart problems, power kidney illness or weight problems.
“In the present day WHO is releasing the newest editions of the WHO Mannequin Lists of Important Medicines and Important Medicines for Kids.
These lists are amongst WHO’s most vital merchandise, utilized in over 150 international locations to form public sector procurement, the provision of medicines, well being…
— World Well being Group (WHO) (@WHO) September 5, 2025
The medicines have been initially developed for diabetes, and have develop into wildly fashionable as weight-loss medicine, too, below totally different model names. However the WHO stopped wanting including them to deal with weight problems alone, because it additionally did in 2023.
The committee stated this resolution supplied clear steerage on which sufferers would most profit from the therapies.
“Excessive costs of medicines like semaglutide and tirzepatide are limiting entry to those medicines,” the WHO assertion added, saying that encouraging generic drugmakers to supply the product would additionally assist when patents start to run out on the medicine subsequent yr.
Different additions
In accordance with the WHO, greater than 800 million individuals all over the world have been dwelling with diabetes in 2022, whereas multiple billion persons are affected by weight problems.
Earlier this yr, the organisation introduced plans to advocate the usage of drugs for weight problems, which is separate from their inclusion on the important medicines checklist.
WHO knowledge reveals that, in 2021, greater than 3.7 million individuals died from situations linked to being obese or overweight – a quantity that exceeds the mixed deaths from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
The checklist additionally consists of Vertex Prescription drugs’ mixture remedy for cystic fibrosis, Trikafta or Kaftrio. Activists have criticised its excessive worth and lack of accessibility for years.
WHO’s checklist additionally consists of Merck’s top-selling most cancers immunotherapy drug, Keytruda, for the therapy of cervical cancers, colorectal cancers, and non-small cell lung cancers which have unfold, or metastasised. The company additionally really helpful methods to extend entry to this drug.
The WHO additional added rapid-acting insulin analogues, additionally made by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, amongst others, to the checklist for treating sort 1, sort 2 and gestational diabetes.
