A physicians’ group has filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration alleging that a recent 60 Minutes segment about the Wegovy weight-loss drug was actually an advertisement and demanded the agency withdraw the report from circulation.
At issue was a Jan. 1 segment on the widely watched CBS News program about the Novo Nordisk drug, which is on its way to becoming a top-selling medicine and has experienced shortages due to high demand. Wegovy is one of a few treatments that are expected to transform weight-loss medicines into a $30 billion market by 2030, according to analysts at Cowen.
The growing appetite for such medicines, though, is prompting debate about the extent to which Wegovy and other drugs will be promoted properly by pharmaceutical companies and prescribed appropriately by physicians. And in this instance, the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine believes that Novo Nordisk — with help from 60 Minutes — crossed a red line.
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