Lilly's triple-action drug beat Ozempic head-to-head on blood sugar and weight in a Phase 3 diabetes trial

Eli Lilly's experimental once-weekly drug retatrutide — nicknamed 'triple-G' because it switches on three hormone receptors at once, helping control appetite, blood sugar and calorie burning — has beaten the highest approved dose of Ozempic in a head-to-head Phase 3 trial of 1,298 adults with type 2 diabetes whose blood sugar was not controlled on standard treatment. Over 80 weeks, retatrutide lowered A1C, the standard measure of blood sugar over time, by an average of 2.2%, against 1.8% for Ozempic. Patients on the higher retatrutide dose lost an average of 47.4 pounds, and those on the lower dose 44.3 pounds, against 20.9 pounds on Ozempic, with better improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure too. The drug is still experimental — it is not approved anywhere, more people stopped it because of side effects at the top dose (7.9% versus 2.7%), and Lilly plans to file for approval in early 2027.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation