Drugmakers are solely months into introducing GLP-1 capsules and navigating big modifications in how sufferers pay for weight-loss medication.
Even so, they’re already outlining their visions for the way forward for weight problems medication.
On the American Diabetes Affiliation’s Scientific Classes in New Orleans final week, drugmakers pitched docs and traders on the thought of latest photographs and capsules, medication that may be taken much less incessantly, and new therapies past GLP-1s that might include fewer unintended effects. The attendees debated the place all these new therapies may slot in, particularly with Eli Lilly at the moment dominating the marketplace for photographs and impressing attendees with knowledge from its experimental triple-acting drug retatrutide that produced essentially the most weight reduction seen but.
Lilly and rival Novo Nordisk showcased new GLP-1 capsules they every launched earlier this yr. Each corporations made the case that oral choices are bringing extra individuals into the marketplace for weight reduction medication, with Novo touting that prescriptions of its Wegovy tablet reached greater than 3 million simply 5 months into the launch.
Behind the 2 market leaders are a wave of latest entrants hoping to get into the huge market within the coming years.
Construction Therapeutics and AstraZeneca every shared mid-stage knowledge from their respective GLP-1 capsules. Ought to these oral medication reach Section 3 trials, they’d probably come to the market round 2029, three years behind Lilly, which launched its small molecule tablet Foundayo earlier this yr (the Wegovy tablet is an oral peptide).
Construction Therapeutics CEO Ray Stevens thinks there’ll nonetheless be loads of room available in the market by then.
“Who wins on the finish of the day with competitors? Sufferers, and that is actually what that is all about,” Stevens stated, including that being the second small molecule drug might be necessary. “We’re actually pushing onerous to get into that second place behind orforglipron, now Foundayo.”
Pfizer additionally unveiled mid-stage knowledge from a shot it gained by means of its $10 billion acquisition of Metsera. The drug confirmed the potential to be given month-to-month, which Pfizer thinks could be extra handy than the at the moment weekly photographs. One other drugmaker, Amgen, is testing a unique drug that might be given month-to-month or probably even quarterly.
Susan Sweeney, Amgen’s govt vice chairman of weight problems and associated situations, stated the corporate sees a bonus in individuals not needing to take a weekly injection and as a substitute excited about remedy as little as 4 occasions a yr.
“For anyone who’s lived with weight problems for a very long time, it may be a significant benefit in not remembering your illness,” she stated.
Mike Doustdar, left, CEO of Novo Nordisk, and David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, pay attention as President Donald Trump speaks within the Oval Workplace throughout an occasion about weight-loss medication on Nov. 6, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | Afp | Getty Photos
Some corporations are wanting past GLP-1 and different scorching targets like GIP and glucagon to rising areas like amylin, one other hormone produced within the pancreas that helps individuals really feel full. One firm is Zealand Pharma, which offered mid-stage knowledge from a drug known as petrelintide that it is growing with Roche.
The experimental shot helped individuals lose virtually 11% of their physique weight — lower than the at the moment accessible injections Wegovy and Zepbound. However Zealand touted that fewer individuals taking the drug vomited than these within the placebo group.
“I really imagine that when these amylin [drugs] launch, we will have that, what I’ve described as an iPhone second, as a result of sufferers are so conscious of the expertise they’ve on the GLP-1s, and when you launch a brand new modality that provides you a greater expertise, individuals will queue as much as get entry to that new weight reduction treatment fairly than staying on the extra cumbersome medicines,” stated Zealand CEO Adam Steensberg.
Like the opposite potential new entrants, will probably be years earlier than Zealand’s drug turns into accessible. Market chief Lilly is growing its personal amylin analogue known as eloralintide that is already in Section 3 trials.
At this yr’s ADA, Lilly additionally offered Section 3 outcomes from its triple agonist retatrutide. That drug prompts the GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors, producing dramatic weight reduction.
On the highest dose, individuals misplaced a mean of 28% of their physique weight after they took retatrutide and stayed on it as prescribed within the trial. Lilly CEO Dave Ricks sees the drug a method to assist individuals with a physique mass index over 40, or the best classification of weight problems, obtain a wholesome weight, one thing that is not potential if they’ve a mean response to Lilly’s present shot Zepbound.
“We confirmed what’s potential, which is significant: Nearly half the individuals lose greater than 30% of their physique weight,” Ricks stated. “So if you happen to do begin at the next degree, you may actually get to a extra wholesome state, which is everybody’s objective, I believe.”
Past Lilly and Novo?
Traders are actually attempting to determine whether or not the market will stay a duopoly between Lilly and Novo or whether or not the potential new entrants will grow to be vital gamers. The newcomers level to the truth that about 2.5 billion individuals on the planet are thought-about chubby, and 890 million are thought-about overweight, in keeping with statistics from the World Well being Group.
“The large query shouldn’t be the amount, it is actually the pricing,” stated Goldman Sachs analyst Asad Haider. “The place does that find yourself?”
Lilly and Novo have reduce the worth of their weight reduction photographs over the previous yr as they compete towards each other and compounding pharmacies that promote cheaper knockoff variations of their medication. Each Lilly and Novo are additionally attempting to enhance medical health insurance protection of GLP-1 medication for weight reduction.
In a number of weeks, hundreds of thousands of seniors on Medicare will be capable to entry the medicines for $50 a month out of pocket.
Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar thinks that within the coming years weight problems will appear like psychological well being as soon as did, the place individuals labeled it as one situation.
“Immediately that is despair, to bipolar, to schizophrenia, to many, many alternative points with very distinct, completely different drugs, and assist for the sufferers. We view weight problems that method,” he stated.
With so many medication within the pipeline, the way forward for treating weight problems, and who makes use of which remedy, may look very completely different. Not less than that is what drugmakers attempting to achieve an even bigger share of the market hope.