Weight pill: No word yet on approval in Canada

A new weight-loss pill that many doctors consider the most effective of a new generation of anti-obesity drugs got the approval of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday. The pill, called Qsymia, was approved for patients who are overweight or obese and also have at least one weight-related condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol. There is no word on whether approval is due anytime soon in Canada. The drug offers hope for those who have failed to lose weight in other ways, but its path to approval also underscores how difficult it has been for drugmakers to find obesity treatments that are safe and effective. The drug's maker, Vivus Inc., said it plans to bring the drug to market in the fourth quarter of this year. It hasn't yet decided what the pills will cost. In testing, the drug led patients to lose more weight than two other weight-loss pills recently review by the FDA. Patients taking Qsymia for a year lost 6.7 percent of their body weight in one study and 8.9 percent in another study, the FDA said. The company said patients on the strongest formulation tested lost nearly 11 percent of their weight. Despite its impressive performance in clinical trials, Qsymia is not exactly a scientific breakthrough. The drug is actually a combination of two older drugs long known to help with weight loss: phentermine and topirimate.