Six drugs beat placebo; two of them by more than a tenth
Pooling 56 randomised trials and 60,307 patients, orlistat, liraglutide, naltrexone-bupropion and phentermine-topiramate all beat placebo. Only semaglutide and tirzepatide passed 10%.
What the study found
Of six obesity drugs, only two clear 10% body-weight loss
The comparison is the useful part, and it comes from outside the manufacturer. Pooling 56 randomised trials and 60,307 patients, orlistat, liraglutide, naltrexone-bupropion, phentermine-topiramate, semaglutide and tirzepatide all beat placebo, but only the last two passed 10%.
The caveat · Ranked without head-to-head trials
A network meta-analysis compares drugs that were never tested against each other, so this ranking is inferred rather than measured. Fourteen of the 56 trials were semaglutide trials and most came from one company's own programme, which pooling does not correct for. Every figure describes people still taking the drug.