Factbox-Top pharma companies racing to launch first weight-loss pill

Dec 23 (Reuters) - The market for weight-loss drug is ⁠expected to expand to ⁠more than $150 billion ‍in revenue by the early 2030s, thanks to the ever-growing popularity of Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy.

Novo Nordisk became the first company to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a GLP-1 pill for obesity, ‍giving the Danish drugmaker a competitive edge in the fast-evolving obesity treatment market.

Several drugmakers are racing to develop an ​oral medicine or pill that might prove to be as effective as the injectables.

Pills are easier to manufacture and could also avoid some of the supply issues that were ​initially seen with Novo and Lilly's injectable drugs.

Here are some companies developing oral obesity drugs in the hopes of making their mark in a lucrative market:

ELI LILLY

Orforglipron, the company's once-daily oral non-peptide GLP-1 agonist, helped overweight adults without diabetes lose 12.4% of their body weight over 72 weeks at the highest dose ​in a late-stage trial.

In another study, orforglipron helped maintain weight loss in patients switching from its GLP-1 injection, Zepbound, and rival Novo Nordisk's Wegovy.

According to a Reuters report, the FDA leadership is pressing reviewers to speed up their evaluation of orforglipron, after the company pushed for ​a faster timeline.

The agency could decide on Lilly's pill as early as March if the new timeline is adopted.

NOVO NORDISK

The Danish drugmaker's weight-loss pill, also branded as Wegovy, is a 25-mg oral ‌formulation of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the blockbuster injectable Wegovy.

Novo said the 1.5-milligram starting dose of the Wegovy pill will be available in early January.

It is approved for chronic weight management in adults with obesity ​or who are overweight and have at least one related health condition.

A 64-week, ⁠late-stage study showed participants who took 25 mg of oral semaglutide once daily lost an average of 16.6% of their body weight, compared with 2.7% for those on a placebo.

STRUCTURE THERAPEUTICS

Structure Therapeutics is developing GSBR-1290, a non-peptide ‌oral GLP-1 agonist.

Its obesity pill showed weight loss of up to 11.3% after 36 weeks of treatment in a mid-stage study, in a 230-person trial.

Structure plans to start late-stage development of the pill by mid-2026 following a meeting with the Food and Drug Administration in the first half of next year.

MERCK

The company, in partnership ‌with Hansoh Pharma, is preparing to test HS-10535, an oral small-molecule GLP-1 agonist, in early-stage trials. The drug is currently being tested in lab studies.

ASTRAZENECA

AstraZeneca and Eccogene are ‌advancing ECC5004, a once-daily GLP-1 receptor agonist pill. Early-stage trial showed a promising weight-loss signal and a favorable safety profile, with mid-stage trials planned under AstraZeneca's lead.

ROCHE

Roche, following its acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics, is working on CT-966, an oral GLP-1 agonist. CT-966 resulted in a placebo-adjusted average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks ‍in obese patients without diabetes in an early-stage trial last year.

VIKING THERAPEUTICS

The company is developing an oral formulation of VK2735, which targets both GLP-1 and GIP hormones that regulate the body's metabolism.

In a mid-stage study, ⁠the experimental weight-loss pill helped patients lose 12.2% of their body weight, missing Wall Street's top-end expectations of 15%.

PFIZER

Pfizer was developing danuglipron, initially as a twice-daily oral GLP-1 agonist, but scrapped development after data from a mid-stage trial showed poor tolerability. A once-daily extended-release version was later tested in about 1,400 patients but liver safety concerns remained, dampening the company's plans to enter the obesity drug market.

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija, Mrinalika Roy , Padmanabhan Ananthan, Mariam Sunny and Sneha S K in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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