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Good evening! Many pharmaceutical companies are rushing to capitalize on one of the next big innovations in the booming weight-loss drug market: an effective, convenient, and affordable pill to treat obesity.
Most of the weight-loss and diabetes drugs now available are weekly injections, such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic, and Eli Lilly’s Zebound and Mujaro. They are among a group of drugs called glucomannan-1 receptor agonists, which have surged in popularity over the past year.
Now, these rivals and other drugmakers like Pfizer are hoping to develop oral weight-loss and diabetes drugs that are easier for patients to take and easier to manufacture at scale. That development could help ease the supply shortages that plague current injectable treatments in the United States.
Tablets are usually cheaper than injections, but it is unclear whether this is the case for oral obesity drugs.
Novo Nordisk makes a low-dose oral version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, that costs $968.52 a month before insurance and other deductibles. The drug, marketed as Rypsolus, is approved to treat diabetes. All current injections cost about $1,000 a month.
Pfizer Inc. signaled Thursday that it is still in the race to develop an obesity drug after a series of setbacks last year. The company said it will submit a daily version of its oral weight-loss drug, danuglipron, for further studies to help determine the optimal dose.
Pfizer disappointed investors last year after it canceled a twice-daily version of danuglipron and another oral obesity drug called lutiglipon.
But once-daily danuglipron is still in early development. It’s also unclear whether the drug giant will commit to late-stage studies of danuglipron, which it must do before it can apply for regulatory approval.
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Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are leading the race.
Eli Lilly is developing an oral drug, orforgliprone, which helped patients lose up to 14.7% of their body weight after 36 weeks in a mid-stage trial, compared with 2.3% among those taking a placebo. Eli Lilly previously said it expected results from late-stage trials of orforgliprone in 2025.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk last year released results from a phase 3 clinical trial of its high-dose oral weight-control drug semaglutide, which helped patients lose an average of about 15 percent of their body weight after 68 weeks.
The company said at the time that it planned to apply for FDA approval in 2023. Novo Nordisk has not indicated whether it has done so.
Novo Nordisk also reported data in March on another experimental weight-loss pill called amicretin, which helped people lose 13.1% of their body weight after 12 weeks in an early-stage trial. Results from a mid-stage trial aren’t expected until 2026.
Amicretin works to suppress appetite by targeting the same gut hormone that Wegovy mimics, called GLP-1. But amicretin also targets a pancreatic hormone called amylin, which affects hunger.
Here are some other pharmaceutical companies developing oral medications to treat obesity, diabetes, or both:
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas or data to Annika at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.
The latest in healthcare technology
Digital health funding shows 'measurable momentum' this year, report says
Things seem to be looking up for the digital health sector – at least a little.
Digital health startups in the U.S. raised $5.7 billion across 266 deals in the first half of 2024, a report from Rock Health said Monday. If the pace continues, the number of deals and funding could surpass the totals raised in 2019 and 2023. Digital health startups raised $8.2 billion across 420 deals in 2019, and $10.7 billion across 498 deals last year, the report said.
According to Rock Health, it’s still tough to compete with the “pandemic-fueled funding cycle” from 2020 to 2022. Investors were flocking to healthcare companies at the time, and funding peaked at $29.2 billion in 2021.
Rock Health said Series A funding activity was particularly strong in the first half of 2024, although seed rounds and Series B checks were also common. Seed, Series A and Series B funding made up nearly 85% of all named fundraising during the period, the report said.
The company calls rounds that don’t have a public address (like a Series A round, for example) “unnamed rounds.” Startups often raise unnamed rounds to avoid getting slashed and move forward in tough markets, though they often don’t avoid tough conversations forever.
Rock Health said the overall share of unnamed digital health deals peaked at 55% in the fourth quarter of 2023, and declined to 47% and 33% in the first and second quarters of this year, respectively.
“This decline may mark the beginning of our return to a 'more normal' pace of marked increases,” the report said.
Many Healthy Returns readers can probably guess what’s coming next: AI has attracted investors to a number of early-stage digital health companies in the first half of this year. Nearly 40% of all digital health companies that raised Series A rounds used AI, and 34% of total funding in the sector went to companies deploying the technology in some capacity.
The ground may also be melting in the digital health IPO market, which has gone nearly two years without any public offerings. Waystar, a healthcare payment software company, and Tempus AI, a precision medicine company, went public in June, while pregnancy monitoring company Nuvo went public via a SPAC in May.
This exit activity reflects the uptick in IPOs across broader markets, RockHealth said.
In short, “early-stage validations are increasing, the proportion of unlisted deals is declining, and the digital health IPO market is showing early signs of life,” the report says.
We'll have to see what the rest of the year holds for us.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas or data to Ashley at ashley.capoot@nbcuni.com.
