The race to bring an oral obesity agent to market is heating up. Novo Nordisk A/S presented detailed results for the oral version of its GLP-1 agonist semaglutide on 25 June at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) annual meeting from the Phase IIIa OASIS 1 clinical trial, with 15.1% mean weight loss observed in overweight and obese adults versus 2.4% for placebo (p<0.0001), confirming topline results release in May. The readout took place two days after the presentation of Phase II data at ADA for Eli Lilly and Company’s oral GLP-1 drug orforglipron, which could be a formidable competitor.
Overweight and obese adults treated with the highest dose of orforglipron achieved weight loss of 14.7% at 36 weeks in Lilly’s Phase II study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on 23 June concurrent with its presentation at ADA in San Diego, and the weight reductions did not plateau before the end of the 36-week trial
