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AstraZeneca has moved a step closer to joining the fiercely competitive field of weight-loss treatments after data showed patients lost nearly 12 per cent of their body weight in a mid-stage clinical trial.
The Anglo-Swedish group said participants in a phase 2 trial shed 11.8 per cent of their weight after 36 weeks on elecoglipron, a daily GLP-1 pill. Those who used the drug for 26 weeks lost 10.5 per cent of their weight, compared with 0.6 per cent on a placebo.
Patients in the trial experienced the common gastrointestinal challenges — nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting — associated with the GLP-1 class of drugs, AstraZeneca said.
The group said it would progress the drug to a phase 3 trial, which will evaluate it as a treatment for people with obesity with and without type 2 diabetes. This final-stage trial will also study the drug as a monotherapy and in combination with a type 2 diabetes medication.
AstraZeneca’s pill would put it in competition with oral weight-loss drugs made by industry leaders Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly when it reaches the market, although its performance so far lags behind the promised weight loss on offer for both of their drugs.
Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill, which last year became the first oral weight-loss treatment to be approved, delivered an average weight loss of about 17 per cent of body weight at 64 weeks. Lilly’s Foundayo, which was approved by the US regulator in April, provided 12.4 per cent weight loss.
AstraZeneca’s entry into the market would mark the latest effort by a big pharma group in a therapeutic area that analysts predict could be worth about $200bn by 2030. The group said its drug was not expected on the market until after 2027.
New York-based Pfizer has also unveiled new data showing its shot offered similar or better weight loss to the drugs sold by Novo and Lilly. Pfizer jumped into the weight-loss market last year with a $10bn splash by acquiring start-up biotech Metsera.
Pfizer was forced to pay a high price for Metsera after a bidding war with Novo Nordisk that escalated into one of the biggest corporate battles in 2025.
Pfizer has been struggling to boost sales since 2022 as fewer people have taken Covid-19 vaccines and its share price has tumbled. The group is now hoping to crack the weight-loss market with a shot that can be given weekly or monthly, which would require fewer injections than the weekly injections on the market.
The shot would give patients options “to choose your own adventure”, said Navin Katyal, a Pfizer president who spoke on Saturday as the company’s data was released at an American Diabetes Association conference. Control over the dosing frequency, he said, “that resonates really, really well with consumers and providers”.
Pfizer said it expected to finish more testing for its weight-loss drug next year and anticipates getting its first regulatory approvals by the first half of 2028. The company’s shares are up 5 per cent in 2026.
Meanwhile, Swiss giant Roche announced at the same conference that patients on its experimental enicepatide injectable lost an average of 22.7 per cent of their body weight after 48 weeks in a mid-stage trial.
Lilly, the leader in US weight-loss and diabetes prescriptions, also unveiled new data showing its next-generation weight-loss drug retatrutide helped people with knee pain and sleep apnoea. Shares in Lilly were up 3 per cent in early US trading, putting them at an all-time high.
Kenneth Custer, an executive vice-president at Lilly, told the FT that new competition in weight loss “is great for patients”. “Historically, competition is what has fuelled scientific progress,” he said. “We welcome competition.”
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