A once-weekly injection of semaglutide could cut alcohol cravings and reduce the amount someone living with alcohol use disorder (AUD) drinks on some days in a given week, according to results from a Phase II placebo-controlled trial.
The human laboratory trial (NCT05520775), carried out by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, saw nearly 40% of participants dosed with semaglutide report a reduction in their overall alcohol cravings as part of a nine-week study.
Over nine weeks, the AUD-focused trial sought to examine if a weekly subcutaneous and escalating dose of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic could reduce a patient's overall desire for alcohol. This is measured through grams of alcohol consumed and breath alcohol concentration.
Across the 48 study participants, a once-weekly injection did not affect average drinks per calendar day or number of drinking days, but significantly, the regimen did reduce drinks consumed per drinking day. At the same time, the trial saw a drop in reported cravings for cigarettes, one of the trial's secondary endpoints.
First author of the study, Klara Klein, said: “The first clinical trial testing the impact of an older GLP-1 receptor agonist on alcohol use in humans was inconclusive.
“However, as the prescription of semaglutide and similar medications escalated, anecdotal reports of reduced alcohol use became very common and suggested the potential of these more potent therapies for the treatment of alcohol use disorder. These data suggest the potential of semaglutide and similar drugs to fill an unmet need for the treatment of alcohol use disorder.”
Additionally, a subgroup of participants who smoked and were dosed with Ozempic reported a greater reduction in average cigarettes per day compared with the placebo group. While there are currently several medications designed to help patients reduce alcohol cravings, there are currently no approved drugs for both alcohol reduction and smoking cessation.
Research by GlobalData’s Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center found that alcohol addiction drugs generated $424m in global sales in 2024, with that figure estimated to rise to $511m by the end of 2026.
GlobalData is the parent company of Clinical Trials Arena
Currently, only three US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications for AUD currently exist, but research by US non-profit the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) indicates they are only prescribed to around 2% of people with AUD in the US.
Commenting on the findings of the Chapel Hill study, Stephen Burgess, group leader at the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “This is a small study, but an exciting one.
"It provides evidence that semaglutide treatment can reduce alcohol consumption, similar to how it has been shown to reduce food consumption and consequently body weight. The likely mechanistic pathway is by dampening brain cues that prompt an individual to crave both food and alcohol.”
Elsewhere in the field of alcohol addiction, Imbrium Therapeutics has announced the submission of an investigational new drug application to the FDA for a Phase II clinical trial of sunobinop.
