hce_tcu
115年
英文
第 40 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, if true, would most undermine the argument that pills are “more appealing” than injections?
- A Surveys reveal that patients prefer weekly injecting over daily tablets.
- B Pills are easier to handle and ship internationally.
- C Oral medications are less expensive to manufacture.
- D Retail pharmacies report strong demand for pills.
思路引導 VIP
想像一下，如果有人宣稱「大家一定更喜歡吃藥而不喜歡打針」，我們要如何找到證據來證明這個觀念可能是錯誤的？你會從哪些角度（例如頻率、效果或使用者的真實感受）去推翻這個說法呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
邏輯削弱與論點驗證
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到題目要求的「削弱（undermine）」邏輯，這代表你對文章脈絡掌握得很透徹。文末提到口服藥丸通常比注射更具吸引力（more appealing），其假設基礎是病患普遍偏好免除針頭的痛苦。然而，選項 (A) 指出調查顯示病患其實更偏好「每週一次」的注射，而非「每日」服用藥丸。這直接挑戰了文中關於「吸引力」的假設，說明了頻率（每日 vs. 每週）可能是病患考量時比「給藥方式」更關鍵的因素。
題型鑑別度分析
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