Weight loss drug news

• Dec 22, 2025:  The FDA has approved the first-ever GLP-1 pill from Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk said the starting dose of 1.5 milligrams will be available in early January in pharmacies and via select telehealth providers with savings offers for $149 per month.  
• That’s the same price that cash-paying patients can access the starting dose of the pill on President Donald Trump’s direct-to-consumer website, TrumpRx, under a deal Novo Nordisk struck with his administration last month. Trump’s site also launches in January.  The approval gives Novo Nordisk a head start over chief rival Eli Lilly, which is racing to launch its own obesity pill.
• Dec 18, 2025:  Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk — the dominant players in obesity drug development — each submitted a new weight-loss drug to the FDA for approval today.

Eli Lilly’s (LLY) drug is called orforglipron. It is a pill that’s taken daily and has shown 12.4% average weight loss. The drugmaker also shared new data that demonstrate orforglipron helped patients maintain their weight loss for a year compared to placebo, and after switching from Zepbound, its weight-loss injection, or Wegovy, Novo’s competing weight-loss injection.

Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) next-gen medication is called CagriSema. It’s a once-weekly shot that combines a long-acting amylin analogue and Wegovy. Clinical trials found that patients taking CagriSema lose an average of 20.4% of their weight after 68 weeks, compared to 3.0% on placebo.

CagriSema would be the first combo GLP-1 if it’s approved, while orforglipron would be the first GLP-1 pill approved for weight loss. Oral GLP-1s like Lilly’s Trulicity and Novo’s Rybelsus have been on the market for about 10 years, though they are only approved to treat people with Type 2 diabetes.

Though Novo was the first to bring a GLP-1 for obesity to market, Lilly is viewed as the market leader, both in sales performance and strategic dealmaking for its products. Its stock is up about 34% for the year, while Novo’s shares have tumbled 45%.

• Dec 11, 2025: Eli Lilly (LLY): experimental "triple G" delivered the best weight loss thus far in a clinical study.  Retatrutide works by mimicking a trio of hormones — GLP-1, GIPR and glucagon — to curb hunger signals and improve blood sugar levels. In a Phase 3 study, patients with obesity and osteoarthritis of the knee, but not type 2 diabetes, lost up to 28.7% of their body weight after 68 weeks.

The results top the 22.5% reduction seen with Lilly's tirzepatide in a 72-week study. Tirzepatide, which sells under the brands Mounjaro and Zepbound for diabetes and weight loss, mimics GLP-1 and GIPR.

There are likely three future categories for weight-loss drugs: low weight loss, mid weight loss and "super high weight loss." Retatrutide likely fits into the last group. Tirzepatide "rules supreme" in the mid weight-loss category, with oral drugs likely to fill the low weight-loss space.

In additional secondary endpoints, retatrutide reduced known markers of cardiovascular risk, including non-HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), and at the highest dose lowered systolic blood pressure by 14.0 mmHg, using the efficacy estimand.4 In an additional post-hoc analysis, 14.1% of patients on retatrutide 9 mg and 12.0% patients on retatrutide 12 mg were completely free of knee pain at 68 weeks compared to 4.2% on placebo, based on the observed efficacy estimand data.