(Reuters) – U.S. pharmaceutical company pfizer (NYSE:) is “fully committed” to developing an experimental obesity drug and is hiring more experts in the field, Chief Executive Albert Bourla told JPMorgan on Monday.・Said at a healthcare conference.
Bourla said experts were helping Pfizer make “better and sounder decisions” and the company could begin late-stage studies of the drug danugliprone in the second half of this year.
Pfizer is testing multiple doses of a once-daily version of its weight loss drug after halting development of the twice-daily version at the end of 2023.
“We're very cautious about Danu at this point,” Bourla said at an industry conference in San Francisco, adding that Pfizer expects to have data from a dose-testing study “within a few months” after extensive testing. He added that there is.
With this drug, Pfizer aims to offer patients a more convenient alternative to Eli Lilly's (NYSE:) Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's (NYSE:) injectable drugs, which currently dominate the weight loss treatment market. are.
Lilly and Novo are also developing their own oral treatments. Some analysts predict that the market for these drugs will be worth more than $150 billion in annual sales by the early 2030s.
“We're hopeful that we'll have a competitive profile,” Bourla said, and if the company can stick to its schedule, Pfizer's pill could be the second to market after Eli Lilly's. he added.
Bourla said it would not be in Pfizer's interest to get an injectable GLP-1 drug because it was “probably a little too late,” and Wigovy and Zepbound, which target receptors for hormones that lower appetite and blood sugar levels. treatment group. GLP-1.
But Bourla said the company is “considering” acquisitions beyond that class, including injectable and oral drugs with different mechanisms of action, because Pfizer has “the ability to develop and market them.” “There is,” he said.
