A class of anti-diabetes and anti-obesity molecules whose mass uptake can shift a country's mortality and upend longevity assumptions.
GLP-1 receptor agonists, approved as early as 2005 for diabetes and later extended to weight loss and cardiovascular risk, have left specialist therapeutics for public health. One major reinsurer estimates they could cut cumulative US mortality by up to 6.4% by 2045 under an optimistic scenario, against 2.3% under a pessimistic one, a factor-of-three gap that reflects not imprecision but a structural indeterminacy, the governing variable being price, reimbursement and adherence. For the life insurer, mortality then ceases to be a demographic trend and becomes a decision variable, a function of a patent and a public budgetary trade-off.
The Canadian semaglutide patent lapsed in 2020 over an unpaid maintenance fee, which, by clearing the way for generics from 2026, decides the magnitude of a national longevity shock.
agoniste du récepteur GLP-1, analogue du peptide glucagonique, sémaglutide