Eli Lilly's New Experimental Drugs Are Better Than Ozempic

More weight reduction advantages might be obtained with an investigational medicine from Eli Lilly than from any presently available medication.

In a mid-stage clinical trial, the experimental medication retatrutide assisted participants in losing, on average, roughly 24% of their body weight, or the equivalent of about 58 pounds, the business said on June 26 from the American Diabetes Association's annual conference in San Diego.

Retatrutide may surpass another weight-loss medication from Lilly, tirzepatide, which experts predicted might surpass all other medications in sales.

The FDA is anticipated to approve tirzepatide for weight reduction this year or early next year. It is presently approved for type 2 diabetes under the name Mounjaro.

The new study highlights the surge in recent years in the development of novel weight-loss therapies as businesses invest in a new class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which imitate a hormone that aids in reducing calorie intake and hunger.

The highly effective Novo Nordisk medications Ozempic and Wegovy include semaglutide, a GLP-1 agonist. The drug tirzepatide from Lilly also mimics the hormone GIP while acting as a GLP-1 agonist. Retatrutide mimics glucagon in addition to GLP-1 and GIP.

GIP is supposed to enhance the body's ability to break down sugar; glucagon may lessen hunger and boost metabolism.

Eli Lilly's chief scientific and medical officer, Dan Skovronsky, shared with NBC News that retatrutide aims to use the body's natural systems for metabolizing food and signaling when to stop eating.

We've taken those typical signaling molecules in your body and transformed them into medications.

- Skorvronsky

In Lilly's phase 2 study, 338 overweight or obese people were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or one of four doses of retatrutide. The medication was injected once a week. The participant's body mass index, or BMI, was 27 or above.

Patients with type 2 diabetes, a population for which GLP-1 drugs are also recommended due to their impact on blood sugar levels, were not included in the findings, which were published on June 26 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Retatrutide is being studied for type 2 diabetes patients in a different study.

According to the business, after 24 weeks, individuals receiving the maximum dose, 12 milligrams, dropped an average of 17.5% of their body weight, or the equivalent of 41 pounds. By 48 weeks, they had lost 57.8 pounds or 24.2% of their body weight.

Ania Jastreboff, an obesity medicine physician scientist at Yale University School of Medicine and the phase 2 study's lead author, said the level of effectiveness was unquestionably impressive.

Furthermore, she added, the weight reduction had not yet reached a plateau after the 48 weeks, indicating that if they had continued taking medicine for longer, they might have lost even more weight.