GLP-1
The latest data showed 15.7% weight loss in patients with diabetes after 68 weeks. In December 2024, CagriSema returned another disappointing readout for Novo, eliciting weight-loss of 22.7% in patients without diabetes, below the pharma’s prior projection of 25%.
While drug developers work to mitigate the side effects associated with GLP-1–based obesity drugs, recent studies reveal that myriad variables are causing patients to stop treatment.
Despite comments made by a Novo Nordisk official this week, the company confirmed to BioSpace that it has no additional clinical trials of its GLP-1 drugs in addiction beyond a Phase II trial testing semaglutide and two other drugs with alcohol use as a secondary endpoint.
Novo Nordisk is intervening in the lawsuit filed by a drug compounders trade group against the FDA over the agency’s decision to declare the Wegovy shortage over. Eli Lilly did the same in a parallel case over Zepbound’s removal from the FDA shortage list and this week a judge denied the compounders’ injunction.
Novo Nordisk’s NovoCare will now provide uninsured or underinsured patients access to Wegovy for just $499 per month—less than half of its list price.
Merck’s Keytruda holds on to the top spot while AbbVie’s Humira—once the world’s top-selling drug—continues to cede its market share to biosimilar competitors.
Two recent documents—one from the FDA, the other from a commission organized by The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology—indicate an evolving mindset toward treating obesity as a chronic disease.
While Kallyope’s drugs are mechanistically unique, the biotech is competing in a crowded space, with other therapies that appear to elicit superior weight-loss.
As high prices and supply issues drive consumers to alternative markets for GLP-1s, physicians aren’t too interested in using these therapies to treat conditions like heart disease risk that have existing cheap standards of care.
As FDA seeks to rehire some fired employees, Donald Trump threatens to enact tariffs on pharma companies unless they reshore manufacturing; another lawsuit hits the complex GLP-1 compounding space as Eli Lilly offers expanded Zepbound options; and struggling gene therapy biotech bluebird bio goes private in an attempt to stay solvent.
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