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Ozempic Literally Came From a Monster – And It's Not Alone
The toxic bite of a Gila monster can kill a human, but a specific ingredient in the cocktail of the lizard's venom is the reason we have glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy.
At the end of the 20th century, endocrinologist Daniel Drucker was looking for a hormone similar enough to the human gut's GLP-1, which would have similar appetite-suppressing and blood sugar-regulating qualities, without being broken down by the human body so quickly.
Drucker had read about the work of endocrinologist John Eng, gastroenterologist Jean-Pierre Raufman and biochemist John Pisano, who had sequenced the proteins in Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum) venom and found two that looked like human GLP-1.
Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
-- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"
