The Obesity Collective is the federal peak body for obesity in Australia. It is a national umbrella coalition with a vision to reduce the health and wellbeing impacts of obesity in Australia. Its members work together to raise awareness of the science and reality of obesity and to promote evidence-based prevention and treatment action as a strong, cooperative and inclusive network.
The Obesity Collective welcomes the release of the new weight management drug, Wegovy®, onto the Australia market and supports the availability of a wider range of therapeutic agents shown to be effective in improving the management of people living with obesity.
The causes and effects of obesity go far beyond individual responsibility and control. It has been clearly established that obesity results from a complex interplay of biological and societal factors and that powerful genetic, epigenetic and biological drivers promote weight gain and subsequently make it difficult to achieve and maintain weight loss. This combination of a powerful physiological drive and a potent obesogenic environment underlies the development and progression of obesity.
The Obesity Collective is strongly supportive of actions to reduce weight stigma and firmly believes that blaming individuals doesn’t work, is counterproductive, has prevented the initiation of effective therapies and has distracted us from a broader understanding of the drivers of obesity and strategies to address them.
Those living with obesity deserve the same level of care, respect and access to clinical services – including pharmaceutical support – as people dealing with other chronic conditions. Unfortunately, this is not the situation in Australia at present.
Improved availability to the drug semaglutide (the active component of Wegovy®) within Australia has the potential to help many people struggling with the numerous health and social consequences of obesity. Whereas semaglutide is not a solution to the root causes of obesity, it offers an effective treatment option for those most in need. However, those most in need of this drug are unlikely to be able to access it because it is currently not PBS-listed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and only available on private prescription for a significant cost. The exact same drug is available under the PBS when marketed as Ozempic® and used for the management of type 2 diabetes.
Equally concerning for The Obesity Collective, both from an equity and stigma perspective, is that the cost of the same dose of the two forms of semaglutide is significantly greater (almost double) when semaglutide is marketed as the weight management medication, Wegovy®, rather than as Ozempic® for type 2 diabetes. This implies that those with a weight condition and serious health issues should be expected to pay more to access the same medication than those with other health conditions.
The Obesity Collective appreciates the significant costs required to develop and bring a drug to the market and the need for pharmaceutical companies to recoup these costs and generate profit. However, we do not accept that a disproportionate burden should be borne by those living with obesity to achieve this financial return.
