It’s a sign of the times that this year’s American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions meeting in New Orleans featured more chatter on obesity drugs and pipeline programs than those specifically for diabetes.
At the event, a bevy of biopharma giants weighed in with updates on their next-generation drugs that are designed to help patients slim down and protect them from a variety of metabolism-related disorders.
Another sign of the times when it comes to Big Pharma and the incretin market is that Eli Lilly emerged as the “clear winner from ADA,” according to Trung Huynh, a pharma analyst for RBC Capital Markets.
“ADA modestly strengthens RBC’s positive view on Lilly and leaves the team incrementally more cautious on Pfizer,” Hyunh added. “The field is getting more crowded—but Lilly is widening its lead.”
Lilly highlighted the sessions with more positive data on its much-anticipated triple-G retatrutide, which made waves last month with eye-opening weight loss figures of 28% at 80 weeks and 30% at 104 weeks on the treatment’s maximum dose of 12 mg.
Over the weekend, Lilly presented results from two “nested basket studies” from the same trial which showed that retatrutide could help cut knee osteoarthritis pain by up to 73% and reduce sleep apnea events from an average of 59 per hour in moderate-to-severe patients to 36.
“At baseline, people were waking up 60 times an hour, and to reduce that by 60%, can you imagine the impact that has on how the person feels the next day, their ability to function,” Rachel Batterham, Lilly’s SVP of medical innovation and external engagement, said at the meeting.
Hyunh added that the results provided evidence of retatrutide's potential for “broader use” and reinforced its position as the “leading efficacy asset in obesity.”
At ADA, several other pharma heavyweights flashed their top obesity candidates, including Pfizer, Novo Nordisk and Roche.
As for Pfizer, its obesity treatment brenobentide provided 16% weight loss over 32 weeks, but “didn’t move the needed on competitive positioning,” wrote Hyunh, who added that brenobentide’s tolerability issues “dominated the investor conversation.” He noted rates of 35% to 37% for nausea, 22% to 25% for vomiting and 21% for discontinuation, which compares to a 4% to 7% discontinuation rates for Lilly’s current market leader Zepbound.
The positives for Novo Nordisk’s next-generation drug CagriSema were its “competitive Type 2 diabetes profile” and its ability to achieve “weight loss endpoints faster than retatrutide,” Hyunh said.
One downside revelation, however, is that its cardiovascular outcomes trial—which will be needed for regulatory submission—will not read out until the second half of 2027. Lilly, by contrast, expects to submit an application for retatrutide in the second half of this year or first half of 2027.
Another key takeaway from ADA, according to Hyunh, is that Roche and Zealand’s potentially first-in-class petrelintide “had a strong tolerability story” but only modest weight loss at 11% for 42 weeks compared to injected treatments.