Memorandum
The Cleveland Clinic will host its 9th Annual Obesity Summit on October 2-3 at the InterContinental Hotel and Bank of America Conference Center in Cleveland, OH. This two-day summit will feature six sessions: (i) The Science of Obesity; (ii) Lifestyle; (iii) Workshops (attendees can select to attend two workshops from a variety of topics – ones of most interest to our readers might include “Drugs in the Treatment of Obesity” and “Pediatric Obesity Opportunity and Impact”); (iv) Obesity and Comorbidities; (v) Medical and Surgical; and (vi) Childhood Obesity. We especially look forward to hearing Dr. Ralph DeFronzo (University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX) speak about obesity’s relationship to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, the renowned Dr. Donna Ryan’s (Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA) thoughts on the cost-effectiveness of lifestyle intervention (many trials have had rather depressing results and we’ll keep our eyes on this particularly as the healthcare landscape continues to undergo significant changes), as well as Dr. Phillip Schauer’s (Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH) take on the issues in pediatric bariatric surgery. The Cleveland Clinic has a major business, of course, in bariatric surgery, and we keep that in mind as we listen to Dr. Schauer’s comments. As these past few weeks have been big for obesity pharmacotherapies (the FDA’s approval of Orexigen’s Contrave [naltrexone/bupropion]and the FDA’s EMDAC’s positive vote for Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda [liraglutide 3.0 mg for obesity]), we are excited to see how the reaction to these new drugs entering the landscape emerges – particularly Saxenda, as it would be the least neuromodulatory of obesity drugs approved in the US. If you are planning on attending the summit, see the full agenda here.