November 12, 2025 — This is a perilous and exciting time for investing in obesity innovation as the market for treating this disease advances dramatically. On the side of excitement, we note that the David Wainer in the Wall Street Journal predicts that “obesity drugs are about to go mass market.” Perilous for Novo On the side of peril, […]
November 8, 2025 — This has been quite a week and the ideas we take home from ObesityWeek 2025 come from both inside and outside of the event in Atlanta. It is a reflection of the fact that the work of cloistered insiders in obesity is and will continue to have large effects in the larger world outside of […]
October 31, 2025 — Yesterday’s news from the business of developing and selling obesity medicines reveals a lot. Lilly told us tirzepatide is now the biggest-selling drug of any kind in the world and Novo Nordisk started a highly unusual bidding war with Pfizer for Metsera. Metsera is a biotech startup focused on obesity medicines. Booming Tirzepatide Lilly announced […]
September 22, 2025 — Yesterday Pfizer announced a $7.3 billion deal to buy Metsera, a company with an impressive obesity drugs portfolio. Roche, having spent $2.7 billion to acquire Carmot in 2023 and $1.6 billion in March on a deal with Zealand, yesterday confirmed its intent to spend everything it takes to become a market leader in obesity. “We […]
July 27, 2024 — It’s been a rough month for investors in Lilly and Novo Nordisk – largely because of the prospects for rising competition to their wildly successful obesity medicines. Accelerating VK2735 This week, Viking Therapeutics announced they are accelerating development of injectable form of VK2735, a dual agonist that works on both GLP-1 and GIP receptors. This […]
July 13, 2024 — Barely seven months ago, business reporters were telling us Pfizer had decided to “drop,” “stop,” “can,” or “pull the plug” on danuglipron – an oral small molecule for obesity. But as we pointed out at the time, they missed the real story. Pfizer was shifting its gears to focus on a once daily form of […]
December 2, 2023 — Dozens of new obesity medicines are in the pipeline for clinical development. Some folks are especially interested in oral medicines that are small molecules. They’re looking for something that offers a sharp contrast with the complex peptide molecules (like semaglutide) given by injection, which are expensive and hard to make. One of the small, orally […]
March 27, 2023 — While Ozempic and Wegovy – two injectable forms of semaglutide – have been grabbing headlines, an oral tablet form – Rybelsus – has been quietly building momentum. Right now, it’s only approved for use in type 2 diabetes. But on Friday, Novo Nordisk announced results from the first phase 3 study of oral semaglutide for […]
October 20, 2021 — Day by day, the prospects for treating obesity are getting better. Late on Monday, detailed results from the longest study yet of tirzepatide came out in Lancet. This was a study using this new drug in people with type 2 diabetes, but the average BMI of these patients was 33. None of them had a […]
