Lilly’s first pill for diabetes, weight loss shows positive study results
Summary
- The drug helped lower patients’ blood sugar and reduce their weight by an average of 16 pounds.
The first GLP-1 weight-loss pill is a step closer to hitting the market.
Eli Lilly said its experimental pill met its goals in a pivotal study, helping diabetes patients lower blood sugar—and even reduce weight, bringing an oral version of the booming class of drugs closer to patients seeking to lose weight.
Physicians and patients have been hoping for pill versions of popular GLP-1s for weight loss. Approved versions are all given by injection, and a pill would be a more convenient option.
“It really gives us an opportunity to reach many more patients than you can reach with an injectable," said Jeffrey Emmick, senior vice president of product development at Lilly Cardiometabolic Health.
Many patients are hesitant to use an injectable, he said. Injectable drugs require refrigeration when they are stored or transported, and the pill potentially opens up the market to parts of the world without strong cold-chain distribution channels.
Lilly is also in a better position to produce a much larger quantity of the small-molecule pills than injectable drugs, he said. The company’s injectable GLP-1 drug went into shortage just months after it was introduced for diabetes.
Thursday’s results are the first from several studies of the daily pill, called orforglipron, expected this year from Lilly in patients with Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
If the pill is approved, Lilly could capture even more of the obesity market that it dominates with Novo Nordisk, with analysts predicting sales in the billions from orforglipron. Analysts expect the white-hot obesity market to exceed $100 billion by the end of the decade.
Lilly currently sells the medicine tirzepatide as weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro, both of which are administered by injection. Novo offers semaglutide injectables of Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for obesity. It also offers Rybelsus as a semaglutide pill to treat diabetes.
All of the drugs including orforglipron target the gut hormone GLP-1 to suppress people’s appetite and regulate blood sugar. But semaglutide is a large molecule, while orforglipron is a small molecule, therefore Lilly’s drug could be absorbed more quickly than Rybelsus. People taking the semaglutide pill Rybelsus also have some food and water restrictions.
The orforglipron results showed the drug worked safely in adults with Type 2 diabetes compared with subjects who received a placebo after 40 weeks, according to Lilly. Orforglipron showed promising safety and efficacy results consistent with current injectable GLP-1 drugs on the market, Lilly said.
The study measured weight loss as a secondary goal. The drug reduced weight by an average of 16 pounds, or 7.9%, at the highest dose, without reaching a weight plateau at the time the study ended, Lilly said. The most common side effects were gastrointestinal-related and were generally mild to moderate in severity, Lilly said.
Late-stage study results evaluating orforglipron in obese patients are expected later this year.
Lilly expects to submit the drug for approval from global regulatory agencies for weight loss by the end of this year, and for Type 2 diabetes treatment next year.
Write to Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com and Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott@wsj.com
