Pfizer signage is displayed on the Pfizer NYC Headquarters in New York. The corporate is ending the event of its potential capsule weight problems therapy. (AP Photograph/Yuki Iwamura)
UNITED STATES – Pfizer is ending the event of its potential once-daily capsule therapy for weight problems after venturing into the most important and most costly stage of scientific testing.
The drugmaker stated Tuesday that it will cease finding out danuglipron after a participant in one in all its trials skilled a attainable drug-induced liver harm that ended as soon as the individual stopped taking the drug.
Danuglipron was in section three testing, which is mostly the final section of growth earlier than an organization submits the potential therapy to authorities regulators for approval.
An organization official stated in a press release that Pfizer nonetheless plans to develop different potential weight problems therapies in earlier phases of testing.
Weight problems therapies have turn into one of many extra promising and profitable sectors of drug growth for pharmaceutical firms. Eli Lilly and Co.’s Zepbound, for example, introduced in practically $5 billion in gross sales in 2024, its first full yr available on the market.
However main therapies like Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy are injectable. Drugmakers are desirous to develop an easier-to-take capsule model for sufferers who don’t need to cope with needles and every day injections.
Lilly researchers count on to see knowledge this yr from research of a pair potential oral therapies it has developed.
Whereas the medication have turn into top-sellers, many sufferers have had a tough time getting them both resulting from just lately concluded shortages or patchy insurance coverage protection.
Each Lilly and Novo have just lately introduced worth cuts, however the therapies can nonetheless value lots of of {dollars} a month, placing them out of attain for some folks with out protection.
Pfizer stated in late 2023 that it will abandon a twice-daily model of danuglipron after greater than half the sufferers in a scientific trial stopped taking it.
An organization spokeswoman stated the choice introduced Monday meant Pfizer would additionally cease testing danuglipron together with different medication to deal with weight problems.
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Shares of New York-based Pfizer Inc. superior 18 cents to $22.09 in morning buying and selling Monday.
