Obesity Pills from Eli Lily, Novo Nordisk near US launch

Eli Lily and Novo nordisk They are preparing to take their rivalry for the next border of weight loss medicines: pills.

Both companies expect to launch oral obesity in the United States next year as soon as the regulators approve them. Daily pills can introduce more people with GLP-1, a class of medication that is most famous for weekly shots.

But after pill lily got less weight loss than expected analysts in Last trial of late stageHe raised new questions about how widely accepted oral drugs and which opponents will prevail in space.

Doctors will consider in more detail how Lily’s pills are compared in the coming months when Lily releases the trial over two, said Chief Scientific Director Lily Dan Skoronsky in an exclusive CNBC interview. The main purpose of the study is to measure how many pills can reduce blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, but it will also evaluate weight loss.

“We wouldn’t have started this stage on the” Ther-Hap “stage, if we had no confidence that Orforglipron would be good to go compared to the oral semaglutid,” Skovron said.

He warned that he did not compare in the test that did not directly compare drugs, where Novo pills look more effective and led to fewer stops. Meanwhile, NOVO CEO Martin Holst Lange’s A separate interview They said the data was saying for themselves.

The upcoming Novo obese pills are an oral version of the Wegovy weekly shot; Lily’s pill is a new drug called Orforglipron, which is different from the Zepbound shot. Shot lily – This is a gold standard in terms of efficiency, Skovran said. This can help people lose more than 20% of their body weight.

Neither Novo pills nor Lily’s oral drug are not as effective as Zepbound. At the highest dose, Orforglipron produces about 12% weight loss, while oral semaglutide led to about 17%. This raises the question how many people choose a pill if it means less weight loss.

However, Wall -Story expects that in the coming years the pills will make large outputs. Analysts see that oral preparations that make up about 20% of about $ 80 billion per obese GLP-1 in 2030, according to evaluation.

Skovronsky believes that pills can end up becoming a major way when obesity is treated worldwide, and that oral drugs can have a larger market share than injections. He said most patients are more concerned with other factors such as deliveries and convenience than how much weight they can lose, and he thinks that Orforglipron has an advantage.

Treatment is a small molecule drug, like most pills that people know. It can be made easier than peptides like shots and pills. And it does not go with restrictions on food and water that come with an verbal Novo version, which requires people waiting 30 minutes after taking drugs to eat and drink.

“When I look at the pills, Orforglipron does not have a dietary effect, it is a small molecule, so the production should be easier,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seygerman. “But with the new guidance in Novo Nordisk, I think (the new Chief Executive Director) Mike Dustdar is not going to just take it and watch it. He will rest and make sure that this launch will be successful.”

Seeing the results of the Lily’s obesity trial, Seygerman translated a part of his market share with Orforglipron to oral Semaglutid. Analysts reduced their 2032 estimates for Orforglipron average about $ 4.5 billion between May to September, the estimate reports. Now they see sales of $ 14.56 this year.

Skovronsky said it is more difficult to predict the dynamics of the market than the science.

“We did a good job by predicting science,” he said. “We said we would make an oral oral, which had safety, tolerability and efficiency similar to Injectable GLP-1.