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Loren D. Walensky

Loren D. Walensky

American physician and scientist

Jun 19, 2026

11:14
But let's start with, hey, these breakthrough drugs for obesity, what are they doing? They're peptides.
11:19
So I think the first thing that you have to say is that these drugs are the product of 30 years of research.
11:27
If you go and talk to the various drug companies like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly that have been pioneers in this, they will tell you that they started researching on these things 30 years ago.
11:36
So this is not something that just magically happened overnight in the last year.
11:40
Billions and billions of dollars that went into that, the original discoveries by basic scientists to understand what these peptides do in the body, this was very, very long in coming.
11:50
And I should also emphasize that What I hope we'll discuss today is the difference between peptide drugs that have gone through the remarkable required scrutiny to say this peptide is now a medicine versus a peptide that actually has not gone through any of that.
12:09
What I would want to emphasize is the former I would feel comfortable injecting into my body if I had a relevant disease, but the latter where you're responding to advertisements and you know, unapproved and untested in human agents because someone tells you that they might make you feel better and live longer.

27 MINS LATER

39:24
I mean, do you think we're on a positive trajectory? How would you think about the totally off-label peptides that people are experimenting with?

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