Eli Lilly Says Its New Weight-Loss Pill Is Highly Effective
In the impatient results of a new study, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly reports that a pill has developed that its scientists cause overweight or obese, but not diabetic, to lose significant amounts of weight.
The drug, called orforglipron, differs from Lilly’s injectable medication, the shooting (which is approved as Mounjaro to treat diabetes and as Zepbound to treat obesity and certain forms of obstructive sleep). While the shooting targets two hormones, GLP-1 and GIP, or Forglipron simply targets GLP-1. Lilly and other companies that make similar medicines have races to create oral weight loss drugs, as weekly injections do not always use patients.
The test included more than 3,100 overweight or obese adults who had a medical problem linked to obesity but not diabetes. Those who take the pill daily for almost a year and a half have lost 12% of their body weight on average, or 27 pounds. People who take a placebo have lost a little more than two books. The results have not yet been published in a journal evaluated by peers, but will be presented in September at the annual meeting of the European Association for the study of diabetes.
Based on the results, Lilly says that she plans to deposit Orforglipron’s approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to deal with obesity by the end of the year. If it is approved, says Lilly, he can provide the pills by next year. The company awaits the final results of a similar study of weight loss in people with diabetes; The first results published in April indicate that the medication helped people with diabetes reduce their blood sugar.
“The results we obtained were as good as possible with a GLP-1 of small oral molecule,” said Dan Dan Skovronsky, scientific director of Lilly. “Safety, tolerability and efficiency were all in accordance with what we have done with the injectable medication, but now delivered in an easy -to -use pill once a day.”
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Among the people in the study that took the drug, the risk factors for heart disease such as LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and a marker of inflammation also dropped, Skovronsky notes. This supports previous data to note that GLP-1 drugs can also reduce the risk of heart disease.
As with the injectable form, people taking the pills had to gradually increase their dose before reaching the maximum dose, mainly to minimize the side effects of gastrointestinal distress. In the study, people started at 6 mg, then increased to 12 mg four weeks later, then to the maintenance dose of 36 mg four weeks later.
Orforglipron’s side effect profile was similar to that of injectable drugs, which is reassuring, explains Skovronsky. “There were two things that worried me,” he says. “One, when you take something orally, you exhibit the stomach and the intestines at a higher concentration of the drug. If this is where the side effects are caused, then [the oral] The form could worsen them. But that was not at all the case.
Nor was it clear what would happen if the study people lacked doses, because it is sometimes difficult to take a pill every day. Because the dose is carefully titled, Skovronsky said he was not known if people who lacked pills for a few days would lose the tolerance they had built on side effects and had to restart their dosage calendar. “What we found is that side effects were similar to injections, even if people have missed the dose from time to time,” he said.
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Novo Nordisk, a competitor who makes Ozempic to treat diabetes and Wegovy for weight management, also has an oral form of its active ingredient, semaglutide, which is already approved to treat diabetes. The company asked for approval to deal with obesity in people without diabetes and expects a decision by the end of the year.
If Orforglipron is approved, it could increase access to GLP-1 drugs in the United States and worldwide. The oral medication is cheaper than the injectable because it does not require sterile injectable pen. Some people also hesitate to inject each other every week, so taking the medication through the mouth would be a welcome option.
While more and more doctors and patients find the best way to use GLP-1 drugs to manage weight, a pill could either start weight loss or be part of a long-term maintenance program for people who have achieved their weight loss objective. “This can allow us to go earlier in the evolution of the disease, because people sometimes hold injections until the disease – in this case, obesity – is more serious,” explains Skovronsky. “We want to deal with obesity in the early stages, which offers a good opportunity to do so.” Skovronsky says that Lilly also studies weight maintenance approaches with Orforglipron.
