Life science trends 2025 – Part 1 obesity drugs
Av Anti-obesity drugs have long been a complicated chapter. Over the years, several pharmaceuticals have been introduced and then withdrawn. It has seemed impossible to suppress feelings of hunger in the brain without also causing depression or anxiety. This is because the centers in the brain that regulate appetite are linked to the centers in the brain that regulate our emotions.
But in 2017, a game changer emerged. It was the Danish company Novo Nordisk that received approval in the US for its diabetes drug Ozempic with the active substance semaglutide. The following year, the EU followed with the same decision.
It was already clear then that Ozempic has a side effect that is sought after by many. In addition to improving blood sugar control, the drug provides significant weight loss.
This effect was by then known for previously approved diabetes pharmaceuticals that affect the intestinal hormone GLP-1, although at that time more modestly. But it was with the launch of Ozempic that the major breakthrough for these anti-obesity drugs came.
Semaglutide's significant weight loss effect was no coincidence. Novo Nordisk had been actively searching for a GLP-1 analogue with that effect.
In 2021 in the US and 2022 in the EU, semaglutide was also approved as a drug for obesity, then under the brand name Wegovy, but the drug had already begun to be prescribed for it off-label.
There is now another GLP-1 analogue available with a strong weight loss effect in both the US and the EU – Eli Lilly's Mounjaro (tirzepatide). In addition to GLP-1, Mounjaro also affects receptors for another intestinal hormone.
Both Novo and Lilly now have similar drugs in development for diabetes and obesity. Lilly is expected to complete its phase III studies with the tablet treatment orforglipron this year. The drug, which is intended to be Mounjaro's successor, is cheaper and easier to manufacture than its predecessor. Novo Nordisk, for its part, is in the final stages of development with Cagrisema, the company's follow-up to Wegovy. Cagrisema consists of a combination of semaglutide and the substance cagrilintide, an analogue of the hormone amylin.
Several other pharmaceutical companies are also working to develop new drugs based on the principle of activating the GLP-1 receptor. Some of these drugs under development appear to provide even greater weight loss than existing drugs.
But the next time we’ll see a success as great as Mounjaro or Wegovy, it will not be a GLP1 analogue and probably not this year. To achieve such success again, drugs that work in other ways are required, as many people think that the side effects of GLP-1s, including severe nausea, are too intense.
Several other possible ways to tackle obesity pharmacologically are now being tested. In Sweden, for example, there are Pila Pharma and Empros Pharma, both of which have other approaches to the disease than activating the GLP-1 receptor. Pila Pharma is developing a drug that blocks the so-called "chilli receptor" and Empros Pharma is working on a new formulation of the two previously approved substances orlistat and acarbose.
It is difficult to predict which new GLP-1s or other types of drugs for obesity will be successful. But there will certainly be a lot of research into new obesity drugs during the year. The successes with Wegovy and Mounjaro has motivated the industry to pursue further developments in this field.
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