Trial shows Lilly’s Zepbound helps patients lose far more weight than competing drug
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Eli Lilly and Co. said Wednesday morning that its weight-loss treatment Zepbound helped patients lose 47% more relative weight than competitor Novo Nordisk’s obesity treatment Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical trial.
Indianapolis-based Lilly said Zepbound, launched 12 months ago, led to a superior weight loss of 20.2% compared with 13.7% with Wegovy.
Participants in the clinical trial lost 50.3 pounds, compared with 33.1 pounds for participants on Wegovy, which was approved in the U.S. in March 2022.
Lilly said the figures came from summary (or “topline”) results in a Phase 3 stage clinical trial known as Surmount-5. The trial was made up of 751 adult participants in the United States and Puerto Rico who received maximum tolerated doses of Zepbound (10 mg or 15 mg) or Wegovy (1.7 mg or 2.4 mg).
Lilly’s announcement came five weeks after it announced disappointing third-quarter earnings in which it missed sales expectations on Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro. The company attributed the results to inventory decreases in the wholesaler channel.
Even so, Lilly reported $1.26 billion of Zepbound sales in the quarter, below expected sales of $1.76 billion.
Novo Nordisk reported $2.5 billion in Wegovy sales in the third quarter, an 81% increase over the same period of 2023.
Zepbound and Mounjaro use the same active pharmaceutical ingredient, known as tirzepatide.
Novo Nordisk, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, makes weight-treatment Wegovy as well as diabetes treatment Ozempic. Both use the same active pharmaceutical ingredient, known as semaglutide.
At 72 weeks, Zepbound beat Wegovy on both the primary endpoint and all five key secondary endpoints in the trial of adults living with obesity or being overweight with at least one weight-related medical problem and without diabetes.
“Given the increased interest around obesity medications, we conducted this study to help health care providers and patients make informed decisions about treatment choice,” said Dr. Leonard Glass, senior vice president of global medical affairs at Lilly Cardiometabolic Health, in written remarks.
In addition, in a key secondary endpoint, 31.6% of people taking Zepbound achieved at least 25% body weight loss compared with 16.1% of those taking Wegovy, Lilly said.
The most commonly reported adverse events in Surmount-5 for both Zepbound and Wegovy were gastrointestinal-related and were generally mild to moderate in severity.
Lilly said it will continue to evaluate the trial results, which will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at a medical meeting next year.