In 2007, the diet pill rimonabant was approved in Europe under the names Accomplia, Riobant and Slimona. At that time, rimonabant was considered “a miracle drug” for its weight loss and cholesterol- and glucose-lowering effects. But now a study on the drug has been halted and the diet pill has been pulled from the market after several suicides. The study, testing the drug’s heart benefits, found that rimonabant had unacceptable neuropsychiatric effects. Rimonabant targets brain receptors that affect appetite, mood and metabolism.
The double-blind placebo-controlled study, published in The Lancet, examined rimonabant’s cardiovascular benefits. Researchers from the Scripps Translational Science Institute administered either rimonabant or a placebo to 18,695 patients in 42 countries at risk for heart disease for three years.
The researchers found that neuropsychiatric and psychiatric side effects were significantly increased in the rimonabant group compared with the placebo group. After 13 months four participants in the rimonabant group committed suicide, compared with one participant in the placebo group. Furthermore, nine participants on rimonabant attempted suicide, versus five on placebo.
“The premature termination of this trial has important lessons for drug development,” the study authors write. “A drug that was being marketed for weight loss, but being tested for improving cardiovascular outcomes, induced a level of serious neuropsychiatric effects that was deemed unacceptable by regulatory authorities, and both the drug and the trial were abruptly terminated.”
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