In search of the $1Trillion drug

No, this is not about a longevity drug with the promise of life extension, but something that would improve lives and also save us billions of dollars.

The total annual cost of chronic diseases in the U.S. alone is estimated to be more than $1 Trillion per year, or nearly half of the entire U.S. health care spending and it is only getting worse.

Thanks to modern science and investments in drug discovery, we now have a potent drug for almost all of the symptoms of various chronic diseases, for example: high blood sugar i.e. T2 diabetes (~$50B annual global drug market size), high blood pressure (~$40B), high cholesterol/dyslipidemia (~$20B), inflammation (~$100B) and NAFLD/NASH (drugs in development, est.$30B). These alone are more than $200B+ of annual drug sales. Unfortunately, none of these drugs cure or reverse the diseases themselves, they just treat the observable symptom such as high blood sugar to try to slow down the progression of the disease and its inevitable outcome (e.g. amputation or death)— hence, they’re typically a life-long subscription to an ever increasing dose and cost of such drugs — and they all come with substantial short- and long-term side-effects (ranging from death to anxiety to heart failure, etc.) familiar to anyone who listens to related advertisements.

Scientists and clinicians are still looking for the perfect explanation for the pathophysiology of these chronic diseases and their “symptoms”, but nearly everyone agrees that the key underlying drivers are a combination of inflammation, insulin resistance and obesity (yes, our genetic makeup plays a (small) part, but one can’t do much about that). It is up for debate which follows which, but few experts question that if you could completely eliminate obesity, inflammation and insulin resistance, most of the above mentioned chronic diseases and their symptoms would go away.

So what would be the $1 Trillion drug? I believe it would be something — a drug, treatment or protocol — that would be safe, efficacious and broadly applicable to substantially reduce or reverse…

1. Inflammation
2. Insulin resistance
3. Obesity

And preferably simultaneous improvement in:

4. High blood sugar (T2 diabetes)

5. High blood pressure

6. NAFLD/NASH (liver)

7. High cholesterol or dyslipidemia

Given the combined annual market of the drugs addressing these conditions today is already north of $200B+ and the total cost of these symptoms / diseases, is in the trillions of dollars, a single drug or treatment that could address all of those factors, would be a $1 Trillion per year blockbuster.

Will such a drug or treatment ever exist? What would it take to discover it?

I am very hopeful and even more. Fortunately, we’ve already published peer-reviewed results related to the Virta Treatment as follows. These are results at 1-year and we’ve subsequently showed strong sustainability even past 2+ years on the treatment:

1. Inflammation — Yes: broad spectrum anti-inflammation effect as measured by CRP and WBC. And more anti-inflammatory details to be published in 2020.
2. Obesity — Yes: about -30lbs or -12% average one year weight loss.
3. Insulin resistance — Yes: substantial reduction in HOMA-IR and fasting insulin.
4. High blood sugar — Yes: Blood sugar A1C reduction that beats anti-diabetic drugs (-1.3%) while eliminating or reducing anti-diabetic drugs.
5. High blood pressure — Yes: Systolic and Diastolic blood pressure reduction comparable to anti-hypertensive drugs while eliminating those drugs.
6. NAFLD/NASH — Promising: Substantial improvement in liver enzyme markers (ALT, AST). There are no FDA approved drugs in this category yet.
7. Dyslipidemia — Yes: Broad spectrum positive improvement in triglycerides, HDL, LDL particle composition. Of the 26 cardiovascular disease risk markers analyzed, 22 improved and calculated total 10 year ASCVD risk was reduced by -12%.

This all may sound too good to be true, especially given our treatment retention was stunningly high 83% at 1 year and 74% even at 2 years. Can there really be a treatment (or drug) that addresses both the hypothesized underlying causes of multiple chronic disease and most (if not all?) of the symptoms of multiple chronic diseases at broad applicability — where the drug market already totals $200B+ per year?
Yes, that’s what the data tells us and patient after patient see these broad spectrum results.

In fact, we are not anymore looking for or developing that $1 Trillion drug. All of our energies are now focused on making the Virta Treatment available for millions of people globally to address the underlying drivers of multiple chronic diseases to reverse (or improve) their conditions beyond what was thought possible. It seems obvious that in addition to the positive human impact, we can also save billions of dollars in the process. Better outcomes, lower costs — how health care should be.