Eli Lilly has announced a daily pill that lowers blood sugar levels and promotes weight loss in individuals suffering from Type 2 diabetes.
The experimental pill, known as Orforglipron, is a GLP-1 drug announced on Wednesday, April 16 2025, the similar class of medicine as the best diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.
“Everybody knows GLP-1s now, and they’re sort of famous as injectable peptide drugs, but we’ve engineered this now into a new kind of molecule that can be taken as a pill form,” Lilly’s chief scientific officer Dr. Dan Skovronsky stated.
If the drug gets approved, Lilly’s medicine would be the second oral GLP-1 drug accessible in the U.S. The first, Rybelsus, produced by Novo Nordisk, contains semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy.
Lilly stated that the drug is currently in the phase 3 clinical trial, and its results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at the American Diabetes Association conference, which is set to occur in June.
In addition, Eli Lilly is conducting research on the results of orforglipron works on weight loss alone in people without Type 2 diabetes.
The daily pill, Orforglipron was found to be effective for weight loss with an average reduction of 9.4% to 14.7% after 36 weeks, according to the findings of phase 2 clinical trial.
Elli Lilly announced on Thursday, April 17 2025, that phase 3 results from the weight loss trial will be available shortly.
Furthermore, the company revealed plans to submit the medicine to the Food and Drug Administration as a weight loss treatment by the end of 2025.
However, in 2026, the company plans to apply for approval as a diabetes treatment.
