Demand for obesity treatments has soared recently, due to unprecedented weight loss provided by regular injections of market leaders Wegovy from Novo Nordisk and Zepbound from Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co.
Eli Lilly and Co. this month launched a public awareness campaign called Brain Health Matters, which features actress Julianne Moore urging people to be proactive as they age to lower their risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Ahead of decisions by the FDA, both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are readying production for their weight-loss pills, having been unable to keep up with demand for their shots that exploded in popularity.
Eli Lilly and Co. and Novo Nordisk have been locked in a fierce battle to control the obesity market, which is projected to reach $100 billion by the end of the decade.
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday posted more than 100 letters to various drug and online prescribing companies, including Hims & Hers, which has built a multibillion-dollar business centered on lower-cost versions of blockbuster obesity injections.
Indianapolis-based Lilly said the new plant would create more than 650 jobs in Virginia for engineers, scientists, operations personnel and lab technicians, as well as 1,800 construction jobs.
The restructuring, which would eliminate 11% of the company’s workforce, aimed to reduce organizational complexity and speed up decision-making as the company faces a more competitive market for obesity drugs.
The recommendation applies to a range of GLP-1 drugs that also includes Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Lilly’s older diabetes treatment, Trulicity.
Eli Lilly and Co. announced this month it would raise the weight-loss treatment’s price by as much as 170%, presenting pharmacies with a dilemma about how much they would pass on to patients.
The company’s shares rose as much as 4.3% Tuesday after Eli Lilly announced the trial results for orforglipron.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. has operated in Ireland since the late 1970s and has more than 3,500 employees there.
Superluminal will use its AI-driven platform to discover and optimize small-molecule treatments for G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs, which have emerged as a key to conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
Trump sent letters to 17 of the world’s largest drugmakers earlier this month, including Lilly and Novo Nordisk A/S, insisting they lower what they charge Medicaid in the U.S. for existing drugs.
The complaint alleges the Indianapolis-based drugmaker offered illegal incentives to influence Texas providers to prescribe Lilly medications including Zepbound and Mounjaro.
Eli Lilly and Co. has already launched LillyDirect service, which CEO David Ricks says jibes with the administration’s demand for direct sales. Lilly is working with Truepill and Amazon.com Inc.’s pharmacy unit on its platform.
The Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant released its second-quarter earnings Thursday along with data from the latest studies of its weight-loss pill, orforglipron.
Seven years of investigation by scientists at Harvard Medical School has revealed that the loss of the metal lithium plays a powerful role in Alzheimer’s disease, a finding that could lead to earlier detection, new treatments and a broader understanding of how the brain ages.
Seventeen of the complaints also name Eli Lilly and Co. competitor Novo Nordisk Inc. as a defendant and make similar allegations about its GLP-1 drug, Ozempic.
Trump administration officials have offered mixed messages about GLP-1s and whether they should be relied upon for weight loss by obese and overweight Americans.
A trial of Eli Lilly and Co.’s blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro fell short of expectations in one aspect, but the results showed enough cardio benefits to eventually encourage investors.
