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Eli Lilly’s new obesity and diabetes pill has shown it can lower blood sugar and aid weight loss in a late-stage trial, sending shares in the US drugmaker up by 15 per cent in Wall Street trading.
Orforglipron uses the same GLP-1 mechanism as weight-loss and diabetes injectables such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro.
David Ricks, Eli Lilly’s chief executive, called it a “convenient once-daily pill”.
While meeting demand for existing drugs has been challenging, Ricks said orforglipron could be quickly manufactured and “launched at scale” if it were approved by the regulator. The company expects to submit it for approval for weight loss treatment later this year, and for diabetes in 2026.
The phase 3 trial found the drug lowered blood sugar by an average of 1.3 to 1.6 per cent and reduced body weight by an average of 8 per cent when taken at its highest dose. On average, the weight of trial participants had not yet plateaued at the end of the study, so they might be able to lose more if they used the drug for longer.
Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said these were “important results”, and having a new pill that lowers blood sugar and weight would be “critical to future type 2 diabetes care”.
The positive results bolster Eli Lilly’s pipeline in obesity as the company races with rival Novo Nordisk to dominate the market. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic still have the majority of the market share, but Zepbound and Mounjaro are quickly catching up.
Novo Nordisk has had some disappointing results in its pipeline of obesity drugs. Late last year, the stock fell 21 per cent after it published phase 3 results for its drug CagriSema, showing it missed its goal of 25 per cent weight loss. Last month, a trial of the same drug in people with diabetes also disappointed.
Other drugmakers are also trying to enter the market but earlier this week, Pfizer abandoned its attempt at creating a pill for weight loss after a patient in one of its trials experienced a “potential drug-induced liver injury”.
In the Eli Lilly trial, there were no safety problems related to the liver. Patients experienced similar side effects to those commonly seen with the injectables, including diarrhoea and nausea.
The pill is also being studied as a treatment for high blood pressure in obese adults, and obstructive sleep apnoea.
