Weight loss
Current leaders Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have cornered the early market for weight loss therapeutics, but several other players, large and small, are bidding for a piece of the potential $200 billion pie.
Eli Lilly’s best play for Foundayo is to bring it overseas, a more price-sensitive market where the pharma can more readily outcompete Novo Nordisk “given the high margins of a small-molecule therapy,” Truist analyst Srikripa Devarakonda told BioSpace.
Roche, through its subsidiary Genentech, will gain access to the investigational asset HM17321, which is designed to not only elicit weight loss but also improve lean mass.
The Phase 3 study is evaluating two doses of Novo’s Wegovy pill in people with obesity or overweight in combination with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity.
Touting an “exceptional” gastrointestinal safety profile for its oral obesity drug candidate in a study of healthy volunteers, Enveda plans to test the asset in people stopping GLP-1 treatment.
Despite coming away with an early victory over Eli Lilly in the oral obesity face-off, analysts don’t expect Novo Nordisk’s lead to last for very long.
Beyond the legal action, Eli Lilly is calling on healthcare providers, regulatory authorities, online platforms and even logistics companies to help stem the illegal sale of its next-generation asset for weight loss.
Foundayo clocked $98 million in sales in Q2, the first quarter it was available, compared to Novo’s $355 million for the same sales period.
A legal dispute between the FDA and Eli Lilly over whether the highly anticipated obesity candidate retatrutide is indeed a biologic has come to a head as the company prepares to submit the medicine for approval.
Amgen has discontinued Phase 1 obesity candidate AMG 513, leaving MariTide as its sole weight loss asset. Meanwhile, executives said the company’s late-stage pipeline is largely full and future business development will focus on earlier-stage opportunities.
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