Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) has already manufactured billions of doses of its next-generation weight-loss pill, anticipating strong global demand ahead of a potential launch next year.
“We’ve already made, actually, billions of doses preparing for the launch,” chief executive officer Dave Ricks said Monday at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago. “That will make this sort of the ‘GLP-1 for all,’ and I think really makes a difference in human health at a global level.”
Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) said in April that its oral weight loss therapy, orforglipron, reached the main goals in a third Phase 3 trial, allowing the company to move forward with global regulatory submissions for the once-daily GLP-1 receptor agonist.
Orforglipron has not yet been submitted to U.S. regulators, though Lilly expects to file for approval by the end of the year. The drug belongs to a new class of GLP-1 receptor agonists, treatments that mimic gut hormones to curb appetite and improve blood sugar control.
Eli Lilly is ramping up investment to maintain its dominance in the fast-growing obesity drug market, even as competition intensifies. Novo Nordisk (NVO) and Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) are two of LLY’s rivals with obesity pills in their pipelines.
The Indianapolis-based company plans to spend $14 billion on research and development this year, with a focus on launching multiple innovative medicines rather than depending on a single blockbuster therapy.
“We’re going to launch two more in the next two years,” he said. “We may launch one a year for the next five or six years. So that’s one way to beat this problem, which is create better and better innovations, like we think about upgrading our phone or whatever.”