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Hello! Several pharmaceutical manufacturers are rushing to capitalize on one of the next big innovations in the booming weight-loss drug market: effective, convenient and potentially affordable anti-obesity pills.
Most of the weight-loss and diabetes drugs available today are weekly injections, such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Mounjaro. They are among the drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which have skyrocketed in popularity in the last year.
Now those competitors and other pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer are hoping to develop oral weight-loss and diabetes drugs that are more convenient for patients to take and easier to manufacture on a large scale. This development could help ease the supply shortages that plague existing injectable treatments in the United States.
In addition, tablets are generally cheaper than injections. However, it is unclear whether this is also the case for oral obesity medications.
Novo Nordisk offers a low-dose oral version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, for $968.52 a month before insurance and other discounts. The pill is marketed as Rybelsus and is approved for treating diabetes. The current injections all have list prices of around $1,000 a month.
Pfizer indicated on Thursday that it remains in the race to develop an obesity pill after a series of setbacks last year. The company said it would subject a once-daily version of its oral weight-loss drug danugliprone to further trials to determine the ideal dosage.
Pfizer disappointed investors last year after the company pulled a twice-daily version of danugliprone and a second oral obesity drug called lotigliprone.
But Pfizer's once-daily danugliprone is still in early development, and it's unclear whether the pharmaceutical giant will commit to conducting late-stage trials of danugliprone, which is required before it can seek regulatory approval.
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Further ahead in the race are Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
Eli Lilly is developing an oral GLP-1 called orforglipron that helped patients in a mid-stage trial lose up to 14.7 percent of their weight after 36 weeks, compared with 2.3 percent for those taking a placebo. Eli Lilly has previously said it expects results from late-stage trials of orforglipron in 2025.
Meanwhile, last year Novo Nordisk released the results of a Phase 3 trial of its high-dose version of oral semaglutide, which is intended for weight management. The pill helped patients lose an average of about 15 percent of their body weight after 68 weeks.
The company announced at the time that it planned to apply for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2023. However, Novo Nordisk has not provided any information on whether this has already happened.
Novo Nordisk also presented data in March on another experimental weight-loss pill called Amycretin, which in an early-stage trial helped people lose 13.1% of their weight after 12 weeks. Results from a mid-stage trial are not expected until 2026.
Amycretin suppresses appetite by targeting the same gut hormone that Wegovy mimics, GLP-1. But amycretin also targets a pancreatic hormone called amylin, which affects hunger.
Here are some of the other pharmaceutical companies developing oral drugs for obesity, diabetes, or both:
Feel free to send tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.
Latest technology in healthcare
According to the report, financing of digital health shows “moderate momentum” this year
Things are looking up for the digital healthcare sector – at least a little.
Digital health startups in the U.S. raised $5.7 billion in 266 deals in the first half of 2024, according to a report from Rock Health on Monday. If this pace continues, the number of deals and funding amounts could surpass the totals of 2019 and 2023. Digital health startups raised $8.2 billion in 420 deals in 2019 and $10.7 billion in 498 deals last year, the report said.
The “pandemic-related funding cycle” of 2020-2022 remains difficult to navigate, according to Rock Health. Investors flocked to healthcare companies then, and funding peaked at $29.2 billion in 2021.
According to Rock Health, Series A activity was particularly strong in the first half of 2024, although seed rounds and Series B checks were also popular. Seed, Series A and Series B funding accounted for nearly 85% of all marked raises during this period, the report said.
The company refers to rounds without a public title (such as Series A) as “unmarked rounds.” Startups often conduct unmarked rounds to avoid valuation discounts and gain traction in difficult markets, although they often can’t avert difficult conversations forever.
According to Rock Health, the overall share of unlabeled digital health deals peaked at 55% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and fell 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' rhythm of marked salary increases,” the report said.
Many Healthy Returns readers can probably guess what's next: Artificial intelligence attracted investors to many early-stage digital health companies in the first half of this year. Almost 40% of all digital health companies that have raised Series A funding rounds use AI, and 34% of the sector's total funding went to companies that use the technology in some form.
The ground may also be thawing in the digital health IPO market, which has been devoid of IPOs for nearly two years. Healthcare payment software provider Waystar and precision medicine company Tempus AI went public in June, while pregnancy monitoring company Nuvo went public via SPAC in May.
According to Rock Health, this exit activity reflects the slight increase in IPOs in the broader markets.
In summary, “Early-stage reviews are increasing, the proportion of unmarked transactions is decreasing, and the digital healthcare IPO market is showing signs of life,” the report said.
We have to wait and see what the rest of the year brings.
Feel free to send tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at ashley.capoot@nbcuni.com.
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