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LEXINGTON, Mass. — New obesity drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound are currently taken once a week, indefinitely. But what if they could be taken once a year instead, like a vaccine?

That’s a question that Novo Nordisk, the pharma company behind Wegovy, is exploring as it faces increased competition from other drugmakers aiming to develop similar GLP-1-based treatments for obesity.

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“We have a very early think tank on: what would it take us, from a technology point of view and from an ecosystem point of view, to make long-lasting GLP-1 molecules?” Marcus Schindler, Novo’s chief scientific officer, said in an interview with STAT Wednesday. “Could we think about vaccine-like properties, where imagine you had, once a year, an injection with an equivalent of a GLP-1 that really helps you to maintain weight loss and have cardiovascular benefits?”

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