Lilly’s Next-Gen Obesity Drug Helps People Lose Even More Weight in Study
Thomas Spritzler, a test subject for the ground breaking study reportedly claimed to have become "invisible. I can literally walk into a party completely undetected. So long as I turn sideways I can't be seen".
Lilly’s Next-Gen Obesity Drug Helps People Lose Even More Weight in Study
A drug combination studied in people with Type 2 diabetes lowered blood sugar and helped people lose more weight than with Zepbound alone
By Alex Janin, WSJ
Sept. 30, 2026 10:15 am ET
A study found Eli Lilly’s experimental drug eloralintide combined with Zepbound helped Type 2 diabetes patients lose more weight than Zepbound alone.
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A next-generation weight-loss drug from Eli Lilly LLY -1.49%decrease; red down pointing triangle, when combined with Zepbound, helped people lose substantially more weight than Zepbound alone, according to a new study.
The experimental injection, eloralintide, which mimics a hormone called amylin that helps signal fullness after eating, was studied in combination with a Zepbound shot in patients with Type 2 diabetes.
Patients on the highest dose of the combination lost an average of 23.3% of their body weight over roughly 11 months while those on Zepbound alone lost an average of 14.8% of their weight. This data combines both the results from patients who stayed in the trial as well as the anticipated results of those that dropped out.
“This will be a turning point for the field,” said Dan Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific officer. “I think this combination will be the most tolerable therapy that we’ve developed yet for the degree of weight loss that we expect to achieve.”
As drugmakers seek to carve out a piece of the massive weight-loss-drug market, more are studying whether adding an amylin drug to a GLP-1 could increase weight loss with fewer side effects. Patients with Type 2 diabetes historically lose less weight on GLP-1s than patients without diabetes.
Lilly, which has the lead in the weight-loss-drug market, is also testing eloralintide as a stand-alone drug in separate late-stage studies. Wall Street has largely been bullish on the drug’s potential. Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger has said he expected it to be a “mega-blockbuster” that could produce $13.6 billion in global revenue in 2032.
Citi’s Geoff Meacham said before the results that a weight loss of more than 18% would represent a “clean win” for the company. The 23.3% weight loss was seen on the highest dose. On the middle doses, patients lost an average of roughly 20% and on the lowest doses, patients lost an average of 13.2%.
A significant number of patients in the 367-person study quit, Lilly’s data show. Between 11% and 27% of patients on the drug combination dropped out due to side effects, the company said, declining to give more specifics about which dose or doses had higher levels of people quitting the drug.
The most common side effects were gastrointestinal-related and were mild to moderate, the company said. They mostly occurred as patients increased their doses. Skovronsky said the high dropout rate was partly due to patients switching to higher doses more quickly than they ordinarily would because of the compressed study timeline.
“That’s the price we’re willing to pay to finish the study in a timely way and get the data, so we can move on,” he said, adding the company is moving to late-stage studies starting at the end of this year. He noted that dropout rates for Zepbound were similar in a mid-stage trial in 2018.
Dr. Nidhi Kansal, an obesity-medicine doctor at Northwestern Medicine who wasn’t involved in the research, said that amylin works similarly to GLP-1 by slowing stomach emptying and can therefore still come with similar side effects.
Analysts are watching the dropout rates closely. Bernstein’s Courtney Breen said that beyond how well the drug works, the gastrointestinal cost of taking it will be worth keeping an eye on.
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