Lilly's Retatrutide Cuts Weight but Fails to Prove Heart Benefit in New Trial

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Eli Lilly reported more results Thursday showing that its next-generation obesity drug is highly efficacious at weight loss, but the data from the study, focused on people with heart disease, aren’t enough to answer a critical question about the therapy — whether it reduces cardiovascular risk.

The Phase 3 study enrolled nearly 2,000 people with severe obesity and heart disease, with or without diabetes. Those on the highest dose of the drug, called retatrutide, lost 22.6% of their weight after 80 weeks, while those on placebo lost 3.2%, when analyzing only the participants who stayed on treatment.

However, on secondary endpoints that looked at the occurrence of major cardiovascular events such as death, heart attack, or stroke, those taking retatrutide did not have a statistically significant lower risk of major events than those on placebo. Lilly said the trial was not powered to study cardiovascular outcomes and there were fewer heart events than anticipated.

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