New daily pill helps obese patients lose more than a tenth of their bodyweight in just six months

An experimental daily weight loss pill helped people shift more than ten per cent of their bodyweight after six months, research has found.

The drug – elecoglipron – also helped to reduce patients’ blood pressure and manage diabetes.

The daily pill is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, like Ozempic or Wegovy, a class of medications that mimic a natural hormone that stimulates insulin, slows digestion and reduces appetite.

Elecoglipron has been trialled in two phase II studies by AstraZeneca – Solstice and Vista – which are published in The Lancet.

The Vista trial included more than 300 people recruited from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, the UK, and the US.

The trial found that the drug led to ‘clinically meaningful and progressive weight loss.’

At its highest dose – 75mg – elecoglipron helped patients lose 10.5 per cent body weight at 26 weeks, compared to 0.6 per cent in the placebo group, increasing to 11.8 per cent at 36 weeks.

The drug also helped lower blood pressure and inflammation.

Experts believe that the drug may actually lead to a far greater reduction in body weight than the trial shows.

Researchers said the ‘sustained reduction in bodyweight up to 36 weeks without evidence of a plateau suggests that maximal weight loss might not have been reached by six months.’

Melanie Davies, a professor of diabetes medicine at the University of Leicester, honorary consultant diabetologist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and principal investigator for Vista, added: ‘Despite huge progress in the field of obesity management, significant opportunity remains to deliver broader, sustainable and more meaningful health benefits for the billions of people living with obesity or weight-related complications.

‘The Vista results show that people receiving once-daily oral elecoglipron achieved significant weight loss as well as lower blood pressure and systemic inflammation, demonstrating its potential to treat both obesity and its related complications.’

In a separate phase II trial, Solstice, researchers analysed data from more than 400 people in the US who were overweight or had type 2 diabetes.

The study found that the drug was more effective at lowering blood sugar and helping patients lose weight when compared to those taking the placebo.

They added that the number of pounds shed increased with dosage after 26 weeks.

Almost 75 per cent of people taking elecoglipron lost at least 5 per cent of their bodyweight after six months compared to 20.2 per cent in the placebo group.

The most common side effects of the drugs reported across both trials were nausea, diarrhoea, constipation and vomiting.

Unlike other weight loss pills being tried, it also does not require strict fasting times, which instruct patients to take them on an empty stomach and 30 minutes before eating.

Sharon Barr, executive vice president of bioPharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca, said the findings give the company ‘confidence’ as phase III trials of the drug get under way.

‘The progression of elecoglipron is an important step in delivering a differentiated weight management portfolio, offering monotherapies and combinations, designed to address the biological complexity of obesity and comorbidities that can be tailored to individual needs, enabling people to live healthier lives,’ she said.