Melanotan-II in obesity and overweight in adults — evidence extract
The Institute's graded assessment of Melanotan-II for obesity and overweight in adults, with the contributing trials and the domain-by-domain certainty reasoning.
§1Evidence extract: Obesity and overweight in adults
§1.1Question and anchor outcome
- Population
- Excess adiposity sufficient to impair health, operationalised in the pivotal incretin programmes as a body-mass index of 30 kg/m² or above, or 27 kg/m² or above with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
- Intervention
- Melanotan-II, subcutaneous in unregulated use
- Comparator
- As used in each contributing trial; reported per trial rather than pooled across comparator types
- Anchor outcome
- Percentage change in body weight from baseline
Additional outcomes the Institute extracts for this indication: Proportion achieving ≥5 %, ≥10 %, ≥15 % and ≥20 % weight reduction; Change in waist circumference; Change in systolic blood pressure; Change in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein.
§1.2Contributing trials
No trial has been identified for Melanotan-II in obesity and overweight in adults. The rating below reflects that absence.
§1.3Certainty assessment
Table 2. Reasoning recorded against each certainty domain.
| Domain | Rating | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Risk of bias | Serious | The primary endpoint is patient-reported in a setting where blinding cannot be maintained. |
| Inconsistency | Serious | Estimates vary in magnitude across contributing trials beyond what chance would produce. |
| Indirectness | No concern | No serious concern identified in this domain. |
| Imprecision | Serious | The confidence interval spans values that would support different decisions. |
| Publication bias | No concern | No serious concern identified in this domain. |
| Overall rating: Very low certainty. The Institute has very little confidence in the effect estimate. The true effect is likely to be substantially different from the estimate. In this series a very low rating most often reflects an absence of controlled human evidence rather than conflicting evidence. | ||
§1.4What this extract does not establish
References cited on this page
References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.
- Clayton AH, Althof SE, Kingsberg S, DeRogatis LR, Kroll R, Goldstein I, Kaminetsky J, Spana C, Lucas J, Jordan R, Portman DJ. Bremelanotide for female sexual dysfunctions in premenopausal women: a randomized, placebo-controlled dose-finding trial. Women’s Health 2016;12(3):325–337. doi:10.2217/whe-2016-0018 · PMID 27638896
- Carvalho M, Dinis-Oliveira RJ. Analytical and forensic aspects of counterfeit peptide hormones. Drug Testing and Analysis 2023;15(1):5–19. doi:10.1002/dta.3379
- Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Falsified Ozempic (semaglutide) pens: patient safety alert. MHRA Safety Alert 2023;Alert reference NatPSA/2023/012/MHRA. identifier not held by the Institute
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