Lilly, Novo, Pfizer look to new weight loss drugs

Drugmakers are only months into introducing GLP-1 pills and navigating huge changes in how patients pay for weight-loss drugs.

Even so, they’re already outlining their visions for the future of obesity drugs.

At the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions in New Orleans last week, drugmakers pitched doctors and investors on the idea of new shots and pills, drugs that can be taken less frequently, and new treatments beyond GLP-1s that could come with fewer side effects. The attendees debated where all these new treatments might fit in, especially with Eli Lilly currently dominating the market for shots and impressing attendees with data from its experimental triple-acting drug retatrutide that produced the most weight loss seen yet.

Lilly and rival Novo Nordisk showcased new GLP-1 pills they each introduced earlier this year. Both companies made the case that oral options are bringing more people into the market for weight loss drugs, with Novo touting that prescriptions of its Wegovy pill reached more than 3 million just five months into the launch.

Behind the two market leaders are a wave of new entrants hoping to get into the massive market in the coming years.

Structure Therapeutics and AstraZeneca each shared mid-stage data from their respective GLP-1 pills. Should those oral drugs succeed in Phase 3 trials, they would likely come to the market around 2029, three years behind Lilly, which introduced its small molecule pill Foundayo earlier this year (the Wegovy pill is an oral peptide).

Structure Therapeutics CEO Ray Stevens thinks there will still be plenty of room in the market by then.

“Who wins at the end of the day with competition? Patients, and that’s really what this is all about,” Stevens said, adding that being the second small molecule drug will be important. “We’re really pushing hard to get into that second position behind orforglipron, now Foundayo.”

Pfizer also unveiled mid-stage data from a shot it gained through its $10 billion acquisition of Metsera. The drug showed the potential to be given monthly, which Pfizer thinks would be more convenient than the currently weekly shots. Another drugmaker, Amgen, is testing a different drug that could be given monthly or possibly even quarterly.

Susan Sweeney, Amgen’s executive vice president of obesity and related conditions, said the company sees an advantage in people not needing to take a weekly injection and instead thinking about treatment as little as four times a year.

“For somebody who’s lived with obesity for a long time, it can be a major advantage in not remembering your disease,” she said.

Some companies are looking beyond GLP-1 and other hot targets like GIP and glucagon to emerging areas like amylin, another hormone…