Eli Lilly built the fastest-growing franchise in pharmaceuticals on drugs that mimic gut hormones, and its next candidate has now been tested against the medicine that started the boom. Retatrutide, a once-weekly injection, outperformed Novo Nordisk's Ozempic at that drug's highest approved dose in adults with type 2 diabetes, the Indianapolis company said. The study enrolled 1,298 patients whose blood sugar was not adequately controlled on metformin, and after 80 weeks both doses of retatrutide cut A1C by an average of 2.2% against 1.8% for Ozempic, Lilly said in its release. The new drug activates receptors for GLP-1, GIP and glucagon, adding a third hormone to the pairing behind Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound.
The sharper difference was on the scale. Patients on the 12 mg dose lost an average of 20.9% of their body weight, those on 9 mg lost 19.5%, and the Ozempic group lost 9.4%, according to the release. People with type 2 diabetes have historically found weight harder to lose, which makes them a demanding population to test. Earlier placebo-controlled trials had already shown large reductions in this group, but none had measured the drug against a marketed competitor.
The gains came with a cost in tolerability. Diarrhea and nausea were the most frequent complaints in every arm, but discontinuations for adverse events reached 7.9% on the 12 mg dose and 4.8% on 9 mg, versus 2.7% on Ozempic, the company disclosed. The trial was open-label, so patients and doctors knew which drug they received. Full data await a medical meeting and journal publication. Novo has yet to bring a dual-acting successor to market and its three-hormone candidates remain in Phase 2, BioPharma Dive reported, one reason analysts read the data as reinforcing the drug's competitive position.
The next milestone is regulatory. Lilly aims to file a biologics application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the first quarter of 2027, the company has said. Separate Phase 3 trials are testing it in sleep apnea, knee osteoarthritis pain, fatty liver disease and cardiovascular outcomes.