Adults taking a new experimental combination treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes achieved an average weight loss of up to 23.3% after 48 weeks, Asharq News reported on Saturday.
Eli Lilly and Co. has not yet published the full study results for either trial. In the phase 2 trial of eloramtizepide—an experimental combination of eloralintide and tirzepatide—adults with type 2 diabetes who were overweight or obese took the medication for nearly a year.
Up to 60% of participants receiving the drug no longer met the body mass index criteria for obesity by week 48, according to Asharq News. The treatment also lowered glycated hemoglobin levels by an average of 2.9%, while up to 77% of participants reached normal blood sugar levels.
Adolescent Weight Loss Results
In a separate phase 3 trial titled Surmount-Adolescents, Eli Lilly tested Zepbound on 12- to 18-year-old participants with obesity over 72 weeks, Asharq News reported.
Zepbound reduced body mass index by an average of 21.4% at the end of the study period. More than half of the young participants no longer met obesity criteria by week 72.
Participants also reported improvements in weight-related quality of life measures, including physical comfort and body image self-esteem.
Broader Pipeline Comparisons
The experimental drug retatrutide, a triple receptor agonist targeting GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon, demonstrated relief from knee osteoarthritis pain in phase 3 trials funded by Eli Lilly and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, according to reports. Those trials, named TRIUMPH-4 and TRIUMPH-1-OA, linked weight losses of 20.0 and 23.7 per cent with reductions in WOMAC knee pain scores among participants. In the Triumph-4 trial, which lasted 68 weeks, WOMAC pain scores decreased by 3.96 points at the 9 mg dose and 3.74 points at the 12 mg dose, compared to a 2.12-point reduction in the placebo group. In the 80-week Triumph-1-OA trial, pain scores dropped by 3.22, 3.48, and 3.64 points for the 4 mg, 9 mg, and 12 mg doses respectively, versus 1.87 points for placebo.
A pooled analysis showed that roughly 63 to 70 percent of participants who took retatrutide achieved at least a 50 percent reduction in pain, compared to 38 percent in the placebo group. Eli Lilly plans to submit a regulatory approval application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the first quarter of 2027, seeking to include knee osteoarthritis as an indication, according to Elnashra News.
Separately, research published in Science Translational Medicine examined the anticoagulant drug dabigatran and found it reduced cartilage damage and joint inflammation in animal models, offering a distinct biological pathway for osteoarthritis management compared to incretin-based metabolic therapies.
Eli Lilly Announces Phase 2 and Phase 3 Findings
Eli Lilly announced the phase 2 and phase 3 findings on Saturday at the ObesityWeek 2026 conference without providing a publication date for the complete datasets.
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