Almost thirty percent of their body weight gone.
Seventy pounds. On average.
That’s the number staring back at us from the latest phase 3 trial for retatrutide.
It’s a weekly injection. 12 milligrams of it. Eighty weeks of waiting for it to do its work.
And for Eli Lilly?
This feels like the home stretch toward FDA approval.
“This has always been the GLP – 1 medicine that we have viewed as most potent, [with] greatest weight loss” says Daniel Drucker.
He teaches at the University of Toronto.
He consulted for Lilly in the past but kept his distance from this specific trial.
His point remains: this drug punches as hard as bariatric surgery.
Most of you know the usual suspects.
Wegovy. Zepbound.
They’re good. They’re famous.
But they’re one – trick ponies, really. Or at least two – trick ponies if you count Zepbound.
Semaglutide in Wegovy targets one receptor.
Tirzepatide in Zepbound targets two.
Retatrutide?
It goes for three.
GLP – 1. Glucagon. And glucose – dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (which they shorten to GIP, presumably because saying the full thing ruins dinner conversations).
Hit more receptors and the body obeys differently.
The data backs this up.
Trials show tirzepatide wins against semaglutide because of that extra target.
Retatrutide takes the logic further.
The trial, TRIUMPH – 1, didn’t mince words about who showed up.
These people were classified as overweight or living with obesity.
Their average starting weight?
248.5 pounds.
Heavy lifts require heavy gear.
Kenneth Custer, an EVP at Eli Lilly, calls it an “option” for different stages of an “obesity journey.”
Corporate speak for: we have another tool in the toolbox.
But the toolbox comes with rust.
Or nausea.
About a third of participants said their stomach turned or their bowels gave up.
A quarter dealt with constipation.
Between ten and twenty – five percent threw up.
Dose dependent, of course.
Higher dose. Higher odds of vomiting.
Drucker says it’s in line with expectations.
What is your expectation for a drug that hijacks three hunger signals?
If this clears the hurdle with the FDA?
Don’t expect it to replace everything else.
It’s the hammer for the biggest nail.
“If it’s approved…, this would drug that people who need to the most weight lose most amount gravitate to.”
Note the stumble in his quote.
Even the experts know the tradeoff.
Power.
Cost.
Side effects.
You pick your poison.
