jetcityimage/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Eli Lilly’s ( NYSE: LLY ) success with GLP-1 diabetes and weight-loss drugs has the potential to be repeated with other products in its pipeline, healthcare analysts said Tuesday at the Seeking Alpha Investing Summit in New York. Orfoglipron, an oral GLP-1 that can be taken orally, instead of injected such the company's Zepbound (tirzepatide), likely would help to expand the market and urge patients to continue treatment. "I’m really excited about orfoglipron,” Louise Chen, managing director at financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, said in a panel discussion moderated by Seeking Alpha's Jonathan Block.
"Lilly ( LLY ) started to work on it in 2018 and they’re ahead of the competition." She acknowledged that product safety is an issue, especially because oral medications tend to be more difficult for drugmakers to develop. The human digestive system adds more complications to making drugs that the body can absorb effectively.
In June 2023, Lilly released phase 2 data on orfoglipron that showed 15% weight loss reduction. "Making an oral is really, really hard,” Holly Morris, managing director at J.P.
Morgan Asset Management, said in the panel discussion. "A key question is safety and tolerability and: Is the dosage high enough?” She pointed to the difficulties 20 years ago with making an inhalable form of insulin to replace injections. The product failed to take off.
Eli Lilly ( LLY ) needs to bring products to mark.
