LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - A new class of weight loss

drugs developed by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly ( LLY ) "opens the

possibility of an end to the obesity pandemic" alongside other

interventions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this

week.

But the global health agency said it has concerns that

unless health systems prepare properly, the drugs could distort

the response to the global obesity crisis, risking leaving

people behind and overshadowing other steps to improve health.

The new drugs "have the potential to be transformative",

according to the WHO's chief scientist, Jeremy Farrar, its

director of nutrition, Francesco Branca, and his senior adviser,

Francesca Celleti, in an opinion piece in the Journal of the

American Medical Association (JAMA). The article is the agency's

clearest comment yet on the potential of the new drugs, known as

GLP-1 receptor agonists.

But "medication in isolation will not be enough to address

the obesity crisis," they added, calling instead for the

innovation to push clinicians, governments, the pharmaceutical

industry and the public towards considering the condition a

chronic disease that needs further study into how best to

prevent and treat it.

More than a billion people worldwide are obese, and there

were 5 million obesity-related deaths in 2019, the WHO said. The

condition is becoming more common almost everywhere in the

world.

The article accepts that, while there is good evidence for

the effectiveness of policies aimed at healthy diets and regular

physical activity, "it is time to recognise that...(they) have

so far failed to treat obesity."

Combining them with the new drugs could change that, it

said, but the authors also raised concerns with how the

treatments - known by the brand names Wegovy and Mounjaro or

Zepbound - are being rolled out.

For example, they said models that intervene only when

people have severe obesity or other related conditions must be

replaced with models that see obesity as a chronic disease

requiring a social, public health and clinical response.

They also said the drugs need to be available more

equitably, cheaply, and at greater scale in order to respond to

the obesity crisis in low-income countries as well as among the

world's wealthiest.

The agency is drawing up guidelines for how to use the drugs

in adults, including in low and middle-income countries, which

are due out in July 2025.

In 2023, the WHO decided not to add GLP-1 drugs to its

essential medicines list, a catalogue of the items that should

be available in all functioning health systems. Another

application has been lodged for the agency to again consider

their inclusion in the 2025 list update, a spokesperson said on

Wednesday.