Eli Lilly Obesity Pill Beats Novo Nordisk Drug in Diabetes Trial

Eli Lilly Wednesday, his experimental pill has outperformed Novo NordiskOwn oral medication in the first top-to-head study comparing the two drugs in type 2 diabetes patients.

The late study occurs while Eli Lilly’s pill approaches the strike of another alternative without needle on the blockbuster market for GLP-1, without food restrictions. But it can be too early to establish a clear winner in the pill space, because there is no data comparing Eli Lilly’s medication with a higher dose of Novo Nordisque pill in patients with obesity.

Eli Lilly said that his pill, Orforglipron, was greater than the main objective of the trial to reduce blood sugar to 52 weeks compared to the oral semaglutide of Novo Nordisk. The highest dose of Orforglipron has helped reduce the A1C hemoglobin – a measure of blood sugar – by 2.2% against 1.4% with the Novo Nordisk pill.

Eli Lilly’s highest dose of medication also helped patients lose an average of 9.2% of their weight, or 19.7 pounds, compared to 5.3% weight loss, or 11 pounds, with the Novo Nordisk pill. Orforglipron’s weight loss was 8.2% when analyzing all patients regardless of stops, while the oral semaglutide was 5.3%.

The results suggest that a dose up to 36 milligrams of Eli Lilly pill can be more effective in treating diabetic patients than a dose of up to 14 milligrams of oral semaglutide, which is already approved under the name of Rybelsus for type 2 diabetes.

“For the majority of patients, this could be the main drug they need to control their type 2 diabetes as well as their obesity,” said Dan Skovronsky, scientific director of Eli Lilly, in an interview.

Dr. Michael Weintraub, endocrinologist at Nyu Langone Diabetes & Endocrine Associates, said that the management of blood sugar by ororglipron is “quite impressive not only compared to other type 2 oral drugs, but all type 2 diabetes drugs, including injectable.”

On Wednesday, the company said that it expects to request the approval of Orforglipron for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in 2026. Eli Lilly hopes to launch its pill on a global scale “this time next year,” CEO David Ricks told CNBC in early August.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are competing for a larger share of the booming market for GLP-1, which, according to some analysts, could be worth around $ 100 billion in the 2030s. The space is impatient of more practical options that could facilitate the gaps of the offer and access the obstacles created by the costly weekly injections that are currently dominating.

GLP-1 orals could reach $ 50 billion in this total, according to some analyst estimates.

But it is less clear how the Eli Lilly pill compares to higher doses of oral semaglutide, especially in overweight patients or who have obesity without diabetes. Novo Nordisk expects American regulators to approve a higher dose of 25 milligrams of its pill for the treatment of obesity by the end of the year, and also studied a dose of 50 milligrams of the drug in a phase three test.

Weintraub said that the dose of 36 milligrams of the Eli Lilly pill in oral semaglutide at a lower dose than what could be approved in the future “semaglutide in the short term”. He added that patients with diabetes generally lose less weight than those without state, so weight loss closer to 15% than oral semaglutide has shown in people with obesity is “certainly not expected” in a study on type 2 diabetic patients.

Because the trial showed that the Eli Lilly pill was better to reduce blood sugar and the weight than in relation to lower doses of oral semaglutide “,” there are several orders that slow down the roll while we look at the results and that we are somehow excited, “said Dr. Jaime Almandoz, medical director of the well-being program Ut-Southwester.

Almandoz said he was “a little too early to say that we are a kind of leader in the class” of drugs. But he said that head-to-face data is useful because doctors determine which pill can be better suited to certain diabetic patients.

The detailed results of the trial will be presented during a medical meeting and published in a journal evaluated by peers.

The company cannot carry out studies on competitors who are not yet approved, Skovronsky noted. But he said he was confident Eli Lilly’s pill can beat higher doses of oral semaglutide in head-to-head tests.

Skovronsky compared Orforglipron’s efficiency to that of the injectable GLP-1s of “New generation”. He seems to refer to Eli Lilly’s blockbuster to the injection of Mounjaro diabetes and the competitor shot from Novo Nordisk.

Meanwhile, Skovronsky said that the oral semaglutide “really occurs at a lower level, more similar to first generation GLP-1” such as Victoza and Trulicity, the older injections of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, respectively.

Rybelsus has been on the market for years, which means that the Eli Lilly pill will be a late rival in the space of diabetes. But the two companies run to develop oral GLP-1 for obesity.

Unlike the oral semaglutide of Novo Nordisk, the Eli Lilly pill is not a peptide medicine. It is a drug with small molecule which is absorbed more easily by the body and does not require food restrictions.

Eli Lilly’s ACH-3 test followed nearly 1,700 adults whose type 2 diabetes was not well managed despite an older diabetes medication called Metformin.

Orforglipron safety data and how patients tolerate the drug were consistent with previous trials. The most common side effects were gastrointestinal and light to moderate in gravity.

Eli Lilly said that 9.7% of patients on the highest dose of his pill interrupted treatment due to the side effects of the trial. This is compared to 4.9% of participants on the highest dose of NOVO Nordisk medication.

But Eli Lilly noted that the study was not designed to compare the safety and tolerability of the two drugs.

Almandoz said Orforglipron’s security and tolerability were “nothing outside the field of what we would expect” GLP-1.

“I don’t think we see signals there that are concerning Orforglipron compared to the semaglutide,” he said.

Skovronsky said that the company is “satisfied” with tolerability, adding that it behaved consistently with GLP-1 injections.

Meanwhile, Weintraub said that seeing a stop rate due to side effects which is “almost double” that of the Novo Nordsk pill “certainly gives me a break”. He said that the Eli Lilly pill has shown a similar rate in previous trials at an advanced stage, so that its gastrointestinal side effects are “probably something that we will have to be aware and advise patients accordingly”.