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One of Dr Mo Sarhan’s patients was experiencing intense cravings for opioids and alcohol when the Florida-based doctor offered him a striking solution: the Eli Lilly weight-loss drug Mounjaro.
“Within days, all of his cravings were gone and he was much more effective in his engagement and treatment. He’s done great since,” Sarhan says.
Sarhan and his colleague Steven Klein at the Caron Treatment Centers in Florida and Pennsylvania have prescribed a range of so-called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s) to treat addictions, using them alongside traditional therapies, to around 75 patients.
The results, which Sarhan describes as “compelling”, are the latest sign that drugs such as Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy could be effective treatments for a startlingly wide range of conditions well beyond their original focus on obesity and diabetes.
On Tuesday, Dave Ricks, Eli Lilly’s chief executive, said the company would begin large studies of GLP-1s in alcohol, nicotine and drug abuse — the first pharmaceutical group to do so.
“These medicines, we think and we’ve aimed to prove, can be useful for other things we don’t think about connected to weight,” he told the Economic Club of Washington DC.
