hce_tcu
115年
英文
第 39 題
📖 題組：
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Novo Nordisk’s oral version of Wegovy, making it the first of the popular GLP-1 medications to get the green light as a pill for weight loss. People who want to lose weight and are prescribed Wegovy now have the option of taking a tablet daily vs. or injecting themselves with the drug once a week. They’re expected to lose about the same amount of weight with either version: 16% to 17% of their starting body weight. The plant, just outside of Raleigh, is running around the clock to produce bottles of pills in four different doses, which have been available at retail stores and online pharmacies since the first week of January. “Obesity has become a consumer-oriented disease,” Novo Nordisk’s CEO Mike Doustdar tells TIME. “We’re embracing that.” The Wegovy pill starts with a fungus; specifically, the same yeast used to make bread, called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But instead of fermenting sugars or grains to make bread rise, the yeast cells are genetically engineered at Novo Nordisk’s facility in Clayton, N.C., to produce a protein that undergoes fermentation in several four-story-tall tanks, then multiple purification steps over about a month to produce semaglutide. This compound mimics a human hormone that regulates appetite by working in the reward center of the brain. It can help people feel full and reduce feelings of hunger. After the fermentation and purification process, semaglutide forms a beige paste resembling pancake batter. In one of the few manual steps in the largely automated production, technicians scrape the paste from large funnels and freeze it at -20°C, where it keeps for up to five years. In the final step, the paste is thawed and further purified into a liquid at a high temperature, which is then spray-dried into a fine white powder—similar to the way snowmaking machines turn hot water into snow. That powder is then pressed into Wegovy tablets. While this semaglutide pill is the first to treat obesity, it isn’t the first that Novo Nordisk has made. Its initial semaglutide pill, Rybelsus, was approved in 2019 to treat diabetes, as an alternative to the company’s Ozempic, which patients must inject weekly. Turning Ozempic into an oral pill required finding a way to protect the drug from the hostile environment of the stomach just long enough for it to be absorbed by the body. Still, the pill is generally not as effective as Ozempic. When diabetes patients noticed they were losing weight on semaglutide, Novo Nordisk and other companies began to study the compound and related ones for their potential effects on obesity. In 2021, the FDA approved Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy to treat obesity, and developing the Wegovy pill became the next challenge. This time, the researchers created a proprietary fatty-acid derivative to better navigate the difficult environment of the stomach. Once the tablet reaches the stomach, it creates temporary changes in the permeability of part of the stomach lining that stops enzymes from breaking down the drug, while giving semaglutide enough time to be absorbed. To maximize the pill’s effectiveness, people should take it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach with up to half a glass of water with no other drinks, food, or other medications for at least 30 minutes, so nothing will interfere with the pill’s activity. The Wegovy pill has an early advantage in hitting pharmacies first, but competitor Eli Lilly, which makes Zepbound, is waiting for an FDA decision about its weight-loss pill orforglipron. Both companies are eager to introduce their oral versions of weight-loss drugs since pills are generally less expensive to produce (and more appealing) than injections, and that should make them more affordable.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Novo Nordisk’s oral version of Wegovy, making it the first of the popular GLP-1 medications to get the green light as a pill for weight loss. People who want to lose weight and are prescribed Wegovy now have the option of taking a tablet daily vs. or injecting themselves with the drug once a week. They’re expected to lose about the same amount of weight with either version: 16% to 17% of their starting body weight. The plant, just outside of Raleigh, is running around the clock to produce bottles of pills in four different doses, which have been available at retail stores and online pharmacies since the first week of January. “Obesity has become a consumer-oriented disease,” Novo Nordisk’s CEO Mike Doustdar tells TIME. “We’re embracing that.” The Wegovy pill starts with a fungus; specifically, the same yeast used to make bread, called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But instead of fermenting sugars or grains to make bread rise, the yeast cells are genetically engineered at Novo Nordisk’s facility in Clayton, N.C., to produce a protein that undergoes fermentation in several four-story-tall tanks, then multiple purification steps over about a month to produce semaglutide. This compound mimics a human hormone that regulates appetite by working in the reward center of the brain. It can help people feel full and reduce feelings of hunger. After the fermentation and purification process, semaglutide forms a beige paste resembling pancake batter. In one of the few manual steps in the largely automated production, technicians scrape the paste from large funnels and freeze it at -20°C, where it keeps for up to five years. In the final step, the paste is thawed and further purified into a liquid at a high temperature, which is then spray-dried into a fine white powder—similar to the way snowmaking machines turn hot water into snow. That powder is then pressed into Wegovy tablets. While this semaglutide pill is the first to treat obesity, it isn’t the first that Novo Nordisk has made. Its initial semaglutide pill, Rybelsus, was approved in 2019 to treat diabetes, as an alternative to the company’s Ozempic, which patients must inject weekly. Turning Ozempic into an oral pill required finding a way to protect the drug from the hostile environment of the stomach just long enough for it to be absorbed by the body. Still, the pill is generally not as effective as Ozempic. When diabetes patients noticed they were losing weight on semaglutide, Novo Nordisk and other companies began to study the compound and related ones for their potential effects on obesity. In 2021, the FDA approved Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy to treat obesity, and developing the Wegovy pill became the next challenge. This time, the researchers created a proprietary fatty-acid derivative to better navigate the difficult environment of the stomach. Once the tablet reaches the stomach, it creates temporary changes in the permeability of part of the stomach lining that stops enzymes from breaking down the drug, while giving semaglutide enough time to be absorbed. To maximize the pill’s effectiveness, people should take it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach with up to half a glass of water with no other drinks, food, or other medications for at least 30 minutes, so nothing will interfere with the pill’s activity. The Wegovy pill has an early advantage in hitting pharmacies first, but competitor Eli Lilly, which makes Zepbound, is waiting for an FDA decision about its weight-loss pill orforglipron. Both companies are eager to introduce their oral versions of weight-loss drugs since pills are generally less expensive to produce (and more appealing) than injections, and that should make them more affordable.
Which of the following best explains why pharmaceutical companies are investing heavily in oral versions of GLP-1 drugs?
- A Oral drugs provide stronger appetite suppression than injectable medications.
- B Oral drugs require simpler biochemical manufacturing processes.
- C Oral drugs are more likely to receive FDA approval than injectable formulations.
- D Oral drugs offer comparable outcomes with advantages in access and production.
思路引導 VIP
如果你是一位藥廠經營者，現在有兩種效果幾乎一樣的藥物，一種需要昂貴的無菌針頭設備來生產，另一種則可以用較低成本製成藥丸；且對一般大眾來說，吞藥丸通常比自己打針更具吸引力。在這種情況下，你會如何評估這兩款產品在市場上的競爭潛力呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準選出 (D) 這個選項，代表你已經成功抓住了文章中跨段落的核心資訊。這題的正確性建立在文章首尾的呼應：第一段明確提到口服錠劑與針劑的減重效果相當（皆為 16% 至 17%），而最後一段則點出關鍵——口服藥物的生產成本更低且對大眾更有吸引力，這兩點正是藥廠願意投入大量資源研發的主因。
臨床數據與市場優勢的整合
這道題目的鑑別度在於測試你是否能避開「主觀直覺」的陷阱。例如選項 (A) 容易讓誤以為「新技術一定更強」的同學上當，但你冷靜地從文中數據判斷出兩者成效其實是「comparable（相當的）」。這題的難度切入點在於將臨床上的「減重比例」與商業上的「生產成本」進行綜合評估，而你準確地在腦中拼湊出完整的商業投資邏輯，展現了優異的閱讀整合力！