Weight-loss drugs entering ‘new era’ with breakthrough daily pill

A new daily weight-loss pill could be just as effective as the popular injectables that help patients lower their blood sugar and lose unwanted weight.

“I think we’re really at the beginning of a new era of preventing chronic disease,” Eli Lilly & Company Chairman and CEO Dave Ricks said on “Mornings with Maria” Friday.

“This is the first of seven studies that we’re doing to study this medicine,” he expanded, “the oral GLP-1 inhibitor that we’ve been developing for more than eight years. And the results are exciting.”

On Thursday, Eli Lilly released data on Phase 3 trials of an experimental, daily weight-loss pill that neither requires refrigeration nor food or water upon ingestion. Results showed that the pill works just as well as Ozempic, with patients losing an average of 16 pounds.

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Shares of Eli Lilly jumped 16% on the news.

“[It’s a] big moment because people like orals better than injectables, typically. And we know there’s been supply constraints. Making the injectable medications is difficult, technically hard and expensive,” Ricks said. “And this will be easier to make at scale. And so patients can be reassured there’ll be constant supply.”

Trial studies will continue throughout 2025, according to the CEO, before it’s expected to reach FDA review by the end of the year. The projected market release date is set for 2026.

“These medicines not only help people look better and feel better in the moment, but managing our weight over our lifetimes is one of the most important things we can do to prevent chronic diseases,” Ricks noted.

“There’s more than 200 chronic diseases that can be improved if we control weight. And some of them are obvious, like heart attacks and strokes, which we think of, diabetes, [as] directly related to obesity. But some are less obvious like inflammation and joint pain,” he added, “that we have studies on some of our other medicines. Lilly has 10 other GLP-1-like medicines.”

Several other companies are researching the development of a weight-loss pill, with sales of obesity treatments expected to hit $150 billion in the coming years, Reuters reported. But the latest data from Eli Lilly gives them an edge.

“We’ll be ready. We’re gonna make this medicine here in the United States. We’re building the largest, what we call API factory, which is, ‘active pharmaceutical ingredient,’ in the history of the country, just up the road from where I’m standing today,” the CEO said.

“We’re deeply committed to that agenda, which I know this administration is as well,” he continued. “So we want to work with them to speed up those factories, get the workers to work, and get these amazing new medicines built at scale. And they’ll be exports. We’ll make them for the world here in our country.”

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