The Helmsley Charitable Trust issued a $3,035,566 grant to three researchers to explore the effects of GLP-1, including Ozempic and Wegovy, on Crohn’s disease patients.

The effort will be led by Louis Cohen, MD, assistant professor of medicine in gastroenterology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York; Parakkal Deepak, MD, associate professor of medicine in gastroenterology at the School of Medicine from Washington University in St. Louis and Andres Yarur, MD, associate professor of medicine in gastroenterology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a Dec. 11 press release.

The grant will fund a study examining how GLP-1 can be used in the treatment of Crohn’s disease and explore how weight-loss drugs could promote healing of the intestinal epithelium.

The grant will fund a clinical trial in which patients will receive a GLP-1R agonist for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, as opposed to traditional therapies targeting inflammation. Investigators will collect samples from patients and study the mechanisms by which GLP-1 affects cells in the intestine.