A new drug to tackle obesity cut the weight of participants by an average of 58 pounds at the end of its latest clinical trial, US drug giant Eli Lilly announced last night.
Results from the trial of the new injectable drug retatrutide were released in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and The Lancet on Monday with clinicians said to be stunned by the weight loss achieved.
In the phase 2 trial, retatrutide demonstrated a 17.5% mean weight reduction at 24 weeks in adults with obesity and overweight.
After 48 weeks the mean weight reduction was 24.2% or 58 pounds.
Given that participants had not yet reached a weight plateau at the time the study ended, the weight loss might eventually be even higher, Elly added.
Observers suggested the results were comparable with bariatric surgery or a stomach band.
"We have not seen results like this before," said Dr Ania Jastreboff, director of the Yale Obesity Research and an author of the NEJM paper.
Lilly presented the results to the American Diabetes Association conference in San Diego with delegates so impressed by the data that they reportedly clapped and cheered when the findings were published.
"This raises the bar," Dr Carel Le Roux an obesity researcher from University College Dublin told reporters afterwards. "This is way beyond my wildest dreams."
Like other rival treatments Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, retatrutide is a weekly injection of hormones that tricks the brain into thinking a person is already full.
Retatrutide, however, impersonates three different eating hormones: GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon rather than one or two for the rival treatments.
“We believe that combining glucagon receptor agonism with GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonism may be one of the reasons retatrutide showed this level of weight reduction," said Dan Skovronsky, Lilly's chief scientific and medical officer
In addition to the weight loss, Lilly said treatment with retatrutide also led to improvements in cardiometabolic measures including blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels at weeks 24 and 48.
The safety profile was similar to other incretin-based therapies, Elly said. adding: “Gastrointestinal side effects were the most commonly reported adverse events, were generally mild-to-moderate in severity, and usually occurred during the dose escalation period. “
In the much bigger phase 3 trial, Lilly said it will "look beyond weight reduction and focus on treating obesity and its complications comprehensively.".