Cluelessness About the Potential of Orforglipron
It’s entertaining in a perverse way. Cluelessness about the potential of orforglipron is impossible to miss in the news about Lilly’s new oral GLP-1 medicine for obesity this month.
The company announced topline results from the first of two pivotal studies for this medicine on August 7 and investors decided the drug was a dud. The Lilly stock price dropped by 14% that day.
Yesterday, the company announced the results of the second study. These results were not terribly different, but the stock soared back to within a percent of where it started this roller coaster ride. Headlines and apparently investors are now concluding that this is progress. “Eli Lilly’s weight loss pill orforglipron clears its latest trial, paving way for approval” was the headline from CNBC.
More Than Weight Loss
The problem behind this cluelessness is simple. Financial analysts are stuck on a fundamental misperception of the importance of obesity medicines. The short-term benefit is weight loss. So they presume that’s all there is to these drugs and they presume that more must be better.
Thus, when the topline results for this once daily GLP-1 tablet showed no dazzling advance in delivering more weight loss than semaglutide, stock analysts presumed the drug will be a disappointment.
Since then, cooler heads seem to be coming around to the view that more is not always better. That the real challenge is delivering these medicines at scale and keeping people on them for better long-term health.
For that purpose, a daily tablet that’s less expensive to produce than the weekly injections that are dominant now might have real, practical advantages.
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Obesity is a complex, chronic disease. It requires chronic care to get to the long-term health benefits that really matter. Losing weight is good. Living a longer and healthier life is even better.
Click here, here, and here for detailed reporting on the latest news about Lilly’s orforglipron.
Dodonpa Roller Coaster, photograph by Nikm / Wikimedia Commons
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August 27, 2025
August 27, 2025 at 9:03 am, Ulf Holmbäck said:
I just want to add Viking’s misfortune. With clinically relevant efficacy and manageble side-effects in the mid-dose arms, they still got hammered because the top doses did not deliver the expected (and unrealistic) results. The investors should be happy to support yet another oral drug, that may cater to a different population than orforglipron, and not look for the fifty-eleventh drug that leads to rapid weight loss.