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Lilly’s tirzepatide bests semaglutide in type 2 diabetes trial 

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Eli LillyEli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) has announced that its investigational drug tirzepatide led to more substantial blood glucose and body weight improvements in a Phase 3 trial than semaglutide, a diabetes drug from Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) that recently scored FDA approval for weight loss in early June.

Lilly’s SURPASS-2 results published in The New England Journal of Medicine show tirzepatide achieved superior A1C and body weight reductions compared to injectable semaglutide in adults with type 2 diabetes.

A JAMA opinion article recently posited that semaglutide could lead to a ‘new dawn’ for obesity treatment.

The Lilly trial randomly assigned patients to receive tirzepatide at doses of 5 mg, 10 mg, or 15 mg or a 1-mg dose of semaglutide.

Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist. Conversely, tirzepatide is a dual glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist.

In the 40-week SURPASS-2 trial, investigators tested three doses of tirzepatide (5, 10 and 15 mg) and compared the findings to semaglutide data. All three were superior for tirzepatide.

The hemoglobin A1C reductions were as follows:

  • A 5 mg dose led to a 2.09% reduction.
  • A 10 mg dose led to a 2.37% reduction.
  • A 15 mg dose led to a 2.46% reduction.
  • A 1 mg dose of semaglutide led to a 1.86% reduction.

Weight reductions were as follows:

  • A 5 mg led to a reduction of 7.8 kg (17.2 lbs.) or –8.5% of total body weight.
  • A 10 mg led to a reduction of 10.3 kg (22.7 lbs.) or –11.0% of total body weight.
  • A 15 mg led to a reduction of 12.4 kg (27.3 lbs.) or –13.1% of total body weight.
  • Semaglutide led to a 6.2 kg (13.7 lbs.) weight reduction or –6.7% of total body weight.

The safety profile for tirzepatide was similar to that of semaglutide in the trial. The most frequent adverse events in the trial were gastrointestinal and were generally mild to moderate.

Assuming tirzepatide wins approval, it could offer significant potential to people with type 2 diabetes.

Filed Under: clinical trials, Drug Discovery
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About The Author

Brian Buntz

As the pharma and biotech editor at WTWH Media, Brian has almost two decades of experience in B2B media, with a focus on healthcare and technology. While he has long maintained a keen interest in AI, more recently Brian has made making data analysis a central focus, and is exploring tools ranging from NLP and clustering to predictive analytics.

Throughout his 18-year tenure, Brian has covered an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, medical devices, and drug discovery and development. Prior to WTWH, he held the title of content director at Informa, where he focused on topics such as connected devices, cybersecurity, AI and Industry 4.0. A dedicated decade at UBM saw Brian providing in-depth coverage of the medical device sector. Engage with Brian on LinkedIn or drop him an email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.

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