{"id":80904,"date":"2026-06-10T16:31:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/80904\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:31:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:31:49","slug":"ada-26-lillys-dominance-pfizers-foundational-drug-and-roches-me-too-option-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/80904\/","title":{"rendered":"ADA \u201826: Lilly\u2019s dominance, Pfizer\u2019s \u2018foundational\u2019 drug and Roche\u2019s \u2018me-too\u2019 option"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Today, BioPharma Dive is switching up its usual rundown of industry news to highlight some notable clinical trial updates presented at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association<\/a>. Over the weekend, several large pharmaceutical companies released new study data on prospects they hope will eventually become part of the next wave of weight loss medicines.<\/p>\n

By and large, companies are hoping to break into a market currently dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk<\/a>. But Lilly and Novo are advancing their own new medicines, too, in a bid to stay ahead of the competition.<\/p>\n

Below are three notable datasets and a look at how they\u2019re being interpreted by investors and analysts.<\/p>\n

Lilly\u2019s reinforced \u2018dominance\u2019 <\/p>\n

Lilly is already the market leader in obesity. Its top drug, sold as Zepbound for obesity and Mounjaro for diabetes, has become the world\u2019s best-selling medicine<\/a>. And a newly launched oral medication, Foundayo<\/a>, is seen by analysts as a future blockbuster.<\/p>\n

At ADA, a third medicine called retatrutide helped Lilly reinforce its \u201cdominance,\u201d wrote RBC Capital Markets\u2019 Trung Huynh. Unlike existing therapies, retatrutide acts on three gut hormones instead of two or one. In clinical testing, that three-pronged approach is resulting in weight loss that surpasses other medicines. It\u2019s giving Lilly\u2019s franchise the kind of \u201cdurability and growth\u201d that can extend to \u201c2030 and beyond,\u201d even in the face of growing pricing pressures and future generic competition, wrote UBS Securities\u2019 Michael Yee.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cTRIUMPH-1\u201d study in obesity<\/a>, retatrutide recipients lost about 70 pounds<\/a>, or 28% of their body weight, after 80 weeks. That total came in about 21 percentage points higher than what was seen with the placebo group and suggests retatrutide is \u201deffectively working as well as bariatric surgery, which is remarkable,\u201d Yee wrote.<\/p>\n

Still, there are at least some questions about what role retatrutide will play once it gets to a market that will already include multiple effective injectable and oral options. While retatrutide appears more potent than other drugs, higher doses also showed numerically greater rates of gastrointestinal adverse events than Zepbound, Yee wrote.<\/p>\n

Given those characteristics, retatrutide use will likely \u201cbe limited to individuals at the higher end of the BMI spectrum, where the benefit\/risk calculus is more favorable,\u201d wrote William Blair\u2019s Andy Hsieh. Zepbound will remain the \u201cgo-to medication\u201d for the majority of people with obesity given its \u201cbalanced efficacy and tolerability profile,\u201d he predicted.<\/p>\n

Pfizer\u2019s \u2018foundational\u2019 weight loss drug <\/p>\n

Pfizer last year spent $10 billion to acquire Metsera<\/a> and with it, a chance to break into the obesity drug market. The deal handed Pfizer a portfolio of next-generation weight loss medicines it views as important to future growth. Since then, analysts and investors have kept a close eye on its progress, starting with a shot that has the potential to be dosed less frequently<\/a> than existing obesity treatments.<\/p>\n

At ADA, Pfizer provided the latest update<\/a> from three Phase 2b studies of that drug, now known as berobenatide, and laid out its path forward. In one study, a high weekly dose led to about 16% weight loss by 60 weeks. In another, maintenance doses ended up producing about 12% placebo-adjusted weight loss after 28 weeks. And a weekly dose evaluated in a test in patients with obesity and Type 2 diabetes yielded weight loss of around 10 percentage points better than a placebo, RBC\u2019s Huynh wrote.<\/p>\n

Those findings position berobenatide, for the moment, as \u201cin line\u201d with Lilly\u2019s fast-selling Zepbound, according to Huynh. But the drug\u2019s tolerability remains a concern. Hyunh noted how study discontinuation rates touched as high as 21% in a trial evaluating monthly doses. And though cross-trial comparisons come with caveats, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea were more frequent in Pfizer\u2019s studies than what\u2019s observed in testing of Zepbound, he wrote.<\/p>\n

Pfizer sees berobenatide as a \u201cfoundational medicine\u201d with potential as a monotherapy or part of combination regimens, wrote Leerink Partners\u2019 David Risinger. The company has 10 planned or ongoing Phase 3 trials and could announce the first late-stage results in the second half of 2027. Initial late-stage data from a monthly regimen might follow in 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to see Phase 3 monthly efficacy and tolerability results in 2028 to understand its profile,\u201d Risinger wrote.<\/p>\n

Roche\u2019s \u2018me-too\u2019 medicine <\/p>\n

Like Pfizer, Roche has used dealmaking to buy its way into the obesity drug chase. Licensing agreements<\/a> and acquisitions \u2014 most notably, a multibillion-dollar deal for the biotech Carmot Therapeutics<\/a> \u2014 have yielded a group of prospects it believes to be competitive with existing therapies. Roche has claimed the three drugs it inherited from Carmot could be \u201cbest in class.\u201d<\/a> Analysts and investors haven\u2019t been so sure, however.<\/p>\n

Data presented at ADA are \u201cunlikely to change\u201d those views, wrote Jefferies\u2019 Michael Leuchten. The highest dose of Roche\u2019s lead program, a dual injectable therapy known as enicepatide or CT-388, led to placebo-adjusted weight loss of anywhere from 18% to 22.5% depending on the efficacy measure \u2014 numbers just above Zepbound\u2019s pivotal results, Leuchten wrote. But its side effect profile appeared \u201cmodestly worse\u201d than what\u2019s available, leaving the Jefferies team wondering how Roche might position a treatment that\u2019s \u201clargely undifferentiated\u201d and well behind multiple other options.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese results do little to differentiate enicepatide from its peers and position it as a late-comer, me-too option if it ever reaches the market,\u201d RBC\u2019s Huynh wrote.<\/p>\n

Recommended Reading <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[41900,4067,30285,1813,134,41901,1904],"class_list":["post-80904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-american-diabetes-association","tag-clinical-trial","tag-michael-yee","tag-obesity","tag-roche","tag-trung-huynh","tag-weight-loss"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116726771626029014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}