Obesity and diabetes are the two most common non-communicable diseases. Currently, 521 million people live with diabetes, and 1 billion people worldwide are affected by obesity.

In recent years, a new class of drugs has drawn attention in the medical community and, consequently, among patients in consultation. These “new” medications have actually existed on the market for 20 years. This class of drugs is known as GLP-1 receptor agonists (substances that bind to a cell receptor and trigger a biological response). GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1

In 1987, Stephen Bloom (endocrinologist) and his research team published in The Lancet that GLP-1 is a human intestinal hormone that stimulates insulin production by the pancreas and lowers blood glucose levels. Human GLP-1, used as a treatment for diabetes, breaks down quickly in the body, which would require high doses that can cause side effects such as nausea. This led to the creation of new GLP-1–like drugs with longer-lasting effects.

John Eng (endocrinologist) made a significant discovery: he extracted the peptide exendin-4 from the saliva venom of the Gila monster (a venomous lizard native to the arid and warm regions of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States). This peptide is structurally similar to human GLP-1 but more stable. While GLP-1 breaks down in the blood in less than a minute, exendin-4 has an active half-life of two hours. This finding was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) in 1991.

Although John Eng’s team discovered a potential treatment for diabetes, exendin-4 did not initially receive the attention or funding necessary for its development. Eventually, John Eng personally obtained the patent, and in 2005 the FDA approved the drug exenatide, the first GLP-1 analog and receptor agonist.