(Reuters) – Pfizer will abandon development of an obesity treatment with its orally administered danuglipron molecule, the company said on Friday, due to a high rate of side effects such as nausea and vomiting.
The move is a blow to Pfizer’s ambitions to join the group of pharmaceutical giants in the lucrative weight-loss drug market.
Pfizer shares fell 2.9% in pre-market trading.
Danuglipron belongs to the same category of diabetes and obesity treatments as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic () and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound ().
Pfizer said it would instead focus on a modified-release, once-daily version of danuglipron. Data on the human body’s reaction to this version is expected sometime next year.
In the current study of the twice-daily version, the drug achieved the primary goal of weight reduction in obese adults without type 2 diabetes, Pfizer claims.
The average weight loss observed in the study, all doses combined, was between 6.9% and 11.7% in patients receiving treatment at 32 weeks, compared to a weight gain of 1.4% for the placebo.
A drop of almost 15% was observed with the highest dose of Eli Lilly’s experimental pill after 36 weeks of treatment.
High rates of side effects led to discontinuation levels above 50% for all doses in the trial.
The study found that up to 73% of patients experienced nausea, 47% vomiting and 25% diarrhea.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bangalore and Michael Erman in New York; French version Victor Goury-Laffont, editing by Kate Entringer)
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