Unemployed people could be given weight loss drugs to return to work in UK

Weight loss drugs could be given to unemployed people with obesity as a way of getting them into work, British Health Secretary Wes Streeting has suggested.

Unhealthy eating impacts people’s lives, cutting their life expectancy, he said. “Our widening waistbands are also placing significant burden on our health service, costing,” Streeting wrote in an opinion piece for the Telegraph.

He suggested that weight loss jabs, such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Mounjaro, could be “life-changing” for people using them and reduce the £11 billion the country’s national health service spends on obesity each year — which is even more than smoking.  

“The long-term benefits of these drugs could be monumental in our approach to tackling obesity,” he wrote. “For many people, these weight-loss jabs will be life-changing, help them get back to work, and ease the demands on our NHS.”

Streeting’s suggestion comes the day after the U.K. government announced a £279 million investment from Lilly — the world’s largest pharmaceutical company and the chief rival to Wegovy and Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk in the obesity drug market.

Streeting said the collaboration will include “exploring new ways of delivering health and care services to people living with obesity, and a five-year real-world study of a cutting-edge obesity treatment.”

The study in Greater Manchester between Lilly and Health Innovation Manchester will look at whether using Lilly’s obesity and diabetes drugs impacts participants’ “health-related quality of life” and “changes in [their] employment status and sick days from work.”

Last year, the Observer reported that Novo Nordisk had lobbied the then-Conservative government, suggesting they could profile people who claim state benefits and target them with weight loss jabs.