FDA Approves New Lilly Diabetes Treatment

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug from Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) to treat type 2 diabetes that is also shown to help with weight loss. The FDA says Mounjaro “was effective at improving blood sugar and was more effective than the other diabetes therapies with which it was compared in clinical studies.”

Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide, is a once-weekly injection treatment designed to activate the GLP-1 and GIP receptors, which are hormones that lead to improved blood sugar control.

“Given the challenges many patients experience in achieving their target blood sugar goals, today’s approval of Mounjaro is an important advance in the treatment of type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Patrick Archdeacon, associate director of the Division of Diabetes, Lipid Disorders, and Obesity in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

According to our partners at the Indianapolis Business Journal, Lilly is also studying the use of Mounjaro to treat obesity, though it has not yet submitted the drug to the FDA for such use.

In its announcement Friday, however, the FDA said obesity was common among participants involved in the study of Mounjaro. The patients who received the maximum recommended dose saw an average weight loss of 15 pounds more than placebo when neither were used with insulin and 23 pounds more than placebo with both were used with insulin.

The IBJ reports Lilly has not yet said how much it will charge for the drug once it’s available.