Eli Lilly Data from Game-Changing Weight Loss Drug Trial

In the Eli Lilly labs, the revolution in weight loss drugs races ahead. This is about pushing the envelope further in this research, right?

Correct. It’s using old molecules as the benchmark in trying to make things that are better.

Today, the company announcing data for its newest drug, an injection called Retatrutide.

We’ve been working to harness the body’s own mechanisms that tell you when you’ve eaten and they get your body prepared to metabolize food and tell you to stop eating.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, says Eli Lilly is on the verge of a breakthrough.

We think that a medicine like this could someday offer the same levels of weight loss that you can see with bariatric surgery.

In Retatrutide’s second clinical trial, obese patients lost up to 17.5% of their body weight, more than 40 pounds, in 24 weeks, nearly 60 pounds in 48 weeks.

I started losing weight within about a month of being on the drug.

Jacinthia Jesse was part of the trial, and while some patients were given a placebo, she believes she was given Retatrutide itself.

I have to say, it was life changing to lose almost 60 pounds, especially someone, again, almost 300 pounds.

Testing is in its early stages. A submission for FDA approval is years away, but Eli Lilly is hopeful it will get approval for a different drug this year; the weight loss version of its approved diabetes medicine, Mounjaro.

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There are analysts who say it’ll be the most lucrative drug ever made. Hyperbole?

Probably, yes. I think at Lilly, we try not to focus too much on which drugs are going to be really big sellers. What we try and focus on is, are we making medicines that treat a deep unmet medical need?

There is certainly a need. Diabetes and obesity are two of the largest health challenges in the US. Other drug companies are pursuing new medications as well, including developing a pill.

Those are more easy to make and can be widely distributed around the world more effectively.

But this class of medications, which includes diabetes drug, Ozempic, is already changing people’s lives.

It has been transformative, to say the least. I think it’s given so many people hope that felt helpless in this fight against the disease of obesity.

Doctors are hopeful these new drugs will also change perceptions.

I think it’s also raised a lot of awareness that obesity is, in fact, a disease and not some sort of personal failing, so it’s been amazing.

With that kind of blessing, pharmaceutical companies are moving full steam ahead. Stephanie Gosk, NBC News, Indianapolis.