The Eli Lilly brand seems on the corporate’s workplace in San Diego, California, U.S., Nov. 21, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Eli Lilly on Thursday mentioned its next-generation weight problems drug delivered robust weight reduction and lowered knee arthritis ache in a late-stage research, clearing the primary of a number of upcoming trials on the weekly injection.
The very best dose of the drug helped sufferers with weight problems and a kind of knee arthritis lose a mean of 23.7% of their physique weight at 68 weeks, when analyzing all members, together with those that discontinued therapy.
When evaluating solely sufferers who stayed on the drug – primarily the best-case situation – the best dose delivered 28.7% weight reduction on common.
It’s the first late-stage information on the retatrutide, which works in a different way from current injections and seems to be more practical. Eli Lilly is betting massive on retatrutide because the subsequent pillar of its weight problems portfolio after its weight reduction injection Zepbound and its upcoming tablet.
It is a vital a part of the drugmaker’s plan to take care of its market share majority over Novo Nordisk within the booming marketplace for weight reduction and diabetes medication. Some analysts estimate the section could possibly be value about $100 billion by the 2030s.
Retatrutide additionally met the trial’s different essential aim of lowering ache from knee osteoarthritis – a typical situation that wears down the joint’s cartilage and results in ache and stiffness – by as much as 62.6% on common when analyzing all sufferers, primarily based on a broadly used survey. Multiple in eight sufferers who took the drug have been utterly free from knee ache by the tip of the trial, Eli Lilly mentioned.
The corporate believes retatrutide “may change into an necessary choice for sufferers with important weight reduction wants and sure problems, together with knee osteoarthritis,” Kenneth Custer, president of Lilly Cardiometabolic Well being, mentioned in an announcement.
However roughly 18% of sufferers on the best dose of the drug stopped therapy as a result of unwanted side effects, in comparison with 4% of these within the placebo group. Eli Lilly mentioned these dropout charges have been “extremely correlated” to sufferers’ beginning BMI and included discontinuations as a result of “perceived extreme weight reduction.”
Round 43% of sufferers on the best dose skilled nausea, whereas roughly 33% and 20.9% had diarrhea and vomiting, respectively.
The research, referred to as TRIUMPH-4, did not solely concentrate on weight reduction, that means that different trials particularly designed for that consequence may produce totally different or greater outcomes. Eli Lilly expects to report findings from seven extra part three trials on the drug by the tip of 2026.
Dubbed the “triple G” drug, retatrutide works by mimicking three hunger-regulating hormones – GLP-1, GIP and glucagon – reasonably than only one or two like current remedies. That seems to have stronger results on an individual’s urge for food and satisfaction with meals than different remedies.
Tirzepatide, the lively ingredient in Eli Lilly’s weight reduction shot Zepbound, mimics GLP-1 and GIP. Novo Nordisk’s weight problems drug Wegovy mimics solely GLP-1.
Greater doses of tirzepatide helped sufferers with weight problems lose as much as 22.5% of their physique weight on common in late-stage research.
Eli Lilly’s chief rival, Novo Nordisk, is racing to catch up. In March, Novo Nordisk mentioned it agreed to pay as much as $2 billion for the rights to an early experimental drug from the Chinese language pharmaceutical firm United Laboratories Worldwide.
Novo Nordisk’s newly acquired drug is a transparent potential competitor to retatrutide as a result of it equally makes use of a three-pronged method to selling weight reduction and regulating blood sugar. However Novo Nordisk’s drug is way earlier in improvement, that means it should take a number of years earlier than it reaches sufferers.