Eli Lilly reports weight losses topping 20 percent with new anti-obesity drug

Eli Lilly in a statement to investors is saying that its new experimental anti-obesity drug has caused patients in a clinical trail to lose up to 20 percent of their weight. 

The test group included 2,539 participants, and was meant to test the safety and efficacy of the drug tirzepatide, according to the statement released by the company on Thursday.

Eli Lilly said people in the test group who used the drug lost up to roughly 50 pounds, or 22.5 percent of their weight in its first phase 3 global registration trial.

The drug is intended for people with obesity or who are overweight with at least one comorbidity, but who do not have diabetes, according to the statement.

“Obesity is a chronic disease that often does not receive the same standard of care as other conditions, despite its impact on physical, psychological and metabolic health, which can include increased risk of hypertension, heart disease, cancer and decreased survival,” Louis J. Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center and the  Sanford I. Weill Professor of Metabolic Research at Weill Cornell Medicine, said in a statement included in the Eli Lilly release.

Aronne is also an obesity expert at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and the investigator of the clinical trial known as SURMOUNT-1.

“Tirzepatide delivered impressive body weight reductions in SURMOUNT-1, which could represent an important step forward for helping the patient and physician partnership treat this complex disease,” Aronne concluded. 

Eli Lilly shares were up nearly 5 percent on the news while the Dow Jones index was up just more than 2 percent late Thursday afternoon.

Lilly said it would be continuing to evaluate the results of the trial, and that it would be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

The company hopes to develop the drop as a treatment for obesity.