Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are preparing to take their rivalry to the following frontier of weight-loss medications: pills.
Each firms expect to launch oral obesity drugs within the U.S. next 12 months, once regulators approve them. Day by day pills could introduce more people to GLP-1s, the category of medication that is best known for weekly shots.
But after Lilly’s pill produced less weight reduction than analysts had expected in a recent late-stage trial, it raised recent questions on how widely the oral drugs will likely be adopted and which rival company will dominate the space.
Doctors will get a better take a look at how Lilly and Novo’s pills compare in the approaching months when Lilly releases the outcomes of a head-to-head trial of the 2, Lilly’s Chief Scientific Officer Dan Skovronsky said in an exclusive interview with CNBC. The study’s most important objective is to measure how much the pills can reduce blood sugar levels in individuals with Type 2 diabetes, but it should also gauge weight reduction.
“We would not have undertaken this head-to-head phase three randomized control trial unless we had lots of confidence that orforglipron would fare well as compared to oral semaglutide,” Skovronsky said.
Nikos Pekiaridis | Nurphoto | Getty Images
He cautioned against making comparisons across trials that did not directly compare the drugs, where Novo’s pill looks more practical and led to fewer discontinuations. Meanwhile, Novo’s Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange in a separate interview said the information speak for themselves.
Novo’s forthcoming obesity pill is an oral version of its weekly shot Wegovy; Lilly’s pill is a brand new drug called orforglipron that is different from its shot Zepbound. Lilly’s shot is the gold standard by way of efficacy, Skovronsky said. It will possibly help people lose greater than 20% of their body weight.
Neither Novo’s pill nor Lilly’s oral drug are as effective as Zepbound. At the very best dose, orforglipron has produced about 12% weight reduction, while oral semaglutide has led to about 17%. That raises the query of how many individuals will go for a pill if it means less weight reduction.
Even so, Wall Street expects pills to make major inroads in the approaching years. Analysts see oral drugs representing about 20% of the estimated $80 billion marketplace for GLP-1 obesity drugs in 2030, in accordance with data from Evaluate.
The logos of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, maker of the blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss treatments Ozempic and Wegovy is seen outside theri constructing as the corporate presents the annual report at Novo Nordisk in Bagsvaerd, Denmark, on February 5, 2025.
Mads Claus Rasmussen | Afp | Getty Images
Skovronsky thinks that pills could eventually turn into the first way that obesity is treated around the globe, and that oral drugs could have a bigger market share than injectables. He said most patients are more concerned about other aspects like supply and convenience than how much weight they’ll lose, and he thinks orforglipron has the sting.
The treatment is a small molecule drug like most pills people know. It will possibly be manufactured more easily than peptides, just like the shots and Novo’s pill. And it doesn’t include the food and water restrictions that include Novo’s oral option, which requires people wait half-hour after taking the drug to eat and drink.
“Once I take a look at the pills, orforglipron has no food effect, it is a small molecule, so the manufacturing needs to be easier,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman. “But with recent management at Novo Nordisk, I believe [new Chief Executive Officer] Mike Doustdar shouldn’t be going to simply take this and be complacent about it. He will lean in and be certain that this launch is successful.”
After seeing the outcomes from Lilly’s obesity pill trial, Seigerman moved a few of his market share estimate from orforglipron to oral semaglutide. Analysts cut their 2032 estimates for orforglipron by a mean of about $4.5 billion between May and September, in accordance with Evaluate. They now see sales of $14.56 billion that 12 months.
Skovronsky said it’s harder to predict the market dynamics than the science.
“We did a very good job predicting the science,” he said. “We said we would make an oral that had safety, tolerability and efficacy that was just like injectable GLP-1s. We did that. The science parts played out. Let’s have a look at how the market plays out.”
