As the 2026 American Diabetes Association (ADA) conference draws to a close for another year, Clinical Trials Arena gives you a rundown of the key readouts from the obesity segment, which could soon be filling up with new players poised to enter the space over the next few years.
Retatrutide addresses obesity comorbidities in late-stage trial
As Eli Lilly looks to continue its dominance in the obesity realm, the Indiana-based pharma has debuted new data on its ultra-high potency ‘triple G’ agonist, retatrutide, which has been capturing significant investor attention after it demonstrated the highest weight loss efficacy of any pharmacological agent in a recent Phase III study.
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Following this landmark achievement, Lilly came poised with new data to ADA 2026 on retatrutide, which demonstrated the triple glucagon, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist’s potential in obesity with both comorbid osteoarthritis pain and moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnoea in the TRIUMPH-1 study (NCT05929066).
During the trial, retatrutide met the study’s primary endpoints in both portions of the trial at 80 weeks, with patients on the 12mg dose losing an average of 28.3%, or 70.3 lbs, of their body weight, while one third of patients achieved a healthy BMI score of 25 or lower at the end of the study period.
The drug also offered a statistically significant 4.3-point reduction in patient knee osteoarthritis pain scores from baseline, while reducing the number of sleep apnoea-linked hypopnoea events by 60.6% from a baseline of 58.6 events per hour to 36.1 events per hour.
On top of its impacts on comorbid osteoarthritis and obstructive sleep apnoea, the triple G agonist improved cardiovascular risk factors from baseline in the TRIUMPH-1 study, with patients experiencing triglyceride and non-HDL cholesterol reductions of up to 41% and 24.2% from baseline at the 80-week mark.
However, the drug’s tolerability could prove problematic, as 11.3% of patients on the high 12mg dose discontinued treatment due to adverse events (AEs), while 25.3% of the individuals in the 12mg arm experienced vomiting following treatment with retatrutide.
In a previous conversation with Clinical Trials Arena, GlobalData analyst Shehroz Mahmood said that retatrutide holds “game-changing” potential in obesity, though adoption may not reach the levels of peer therapies like Lilly’s Zepbound (tirzepatide) or Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide), since many patients and doctors are already familiar with these drugs.
Sciwind’s ecnoglutide trumps semaglutide
While Lilly and its main rival Novo Nordisk battle for market share in the space, Hangzhou Sciwind Biosciences is also looking to take a share in China following results from its head-to-head SLIMMER-UP-SWITCH trial (NCT07073417). The Phase II study is pitting Novo’s Wegovy (semaglutide) against Sciwind’s approved, long-acting, cAMP-biased GLP-1RA injectable, ecnoglutide, which it jointly commercialises with Pfizer China.
According to data presented as a late-breaking abstract at ADA 2026, ecnoglutide offered a 35% and 20% greater body weight and waist circumference reduction after 20 weeks of treatment compared with Wegovy, while nearly twice as many patients receiving the drug achieved a body weight loss of 10% or more.
According to Linong Ji, director of the department of endocrinology at Peking University People’s Hospital, this study provides the “first direct clinical evidence validating the clinical advantages of the cAMP-biased GLP-1RA mechanism,”
“By optimising GLP-1 receptor signal transduction, it delivers superior clinical benefits over traditional GLP-1RAs, providing high-quality evidence-based medical evidence for the field of weight management,” Ji commented.
Sciwind’s founder and CEO, Dr Hai Pan, echoed Ji’s sentiments, noting that better weight loss therapies are not created by simply stacking targets, but instead they will be born from “precise regulation of key biological mechanisms”.
Boehringer’s survodutide posts win, but AEs shake results
German pharma giant, Boehringer Ingelheim, has taken another step towards the burgeoning obesity market alongside partner, Zealand Pharma, with data presented from the Phase III SYNCHRONIZE programme. This group of trials is evaluating the potential of the pair’s injectable, peptide-based, dual glucagon/GLP-1RA, survodutide in patients with obesity alone, or obesity with fibrotic metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
Previously, Boehringer posted positive results for survodutide in April, with data revealing that patients lost 16.6% of their body weight from baseline after taking a 76-week course of the drug, compared with 3.2% in the placebo arm, which William Blair analysts described as “Wegovy-like efficacy”.
Following this outcome, the company came to ADA 2026 armed with new data gathered from a pre-specified analysis of the SYNCHRONIZE-1 study (NCT06066515), revealing that patients treated with survodutide experienced relative visceral and liver fat reductions of up to 34% and 63.1%, respectively, from baseline after 76 weeks.
Notably, further analysis uncovered that this weight loss was primarily driven by fat reduction, with no more than 10.8% of a patient’s change in total mass at the highest dose coming from the loss of lean tissue.
Alongside this outcome, Boehringer presented data from the SYNCHRONIZE-MASLD trial (NCT06309992), which found that 84.2% of patients treated with survodutide showed a 30% relative reduction in liver fat at the end of the study period over 24.3% of the placebo patients – meeting the trial’s primary endpoint. This figure was backed by the secondary endpoint, which revealed that 61% of patients achieved liver fat normalisation at week 48, compared with the 5.7% of patients who achieved the same outcome in the placebo arm.
However, the discontinuation rate linked to gastrointestinal AEs for survodutide-treated patients was 19% compared with 2.9% in the placebo arm – highlighting potential concerns around the drug’s tolerability, as this aspect of treatment garners increasing investor and public scrutiny.
Despite the tolerability concerns, William Blair analysts note that survodutide “remains on track to be the third peptide incretin approved in obesity, pending clinical and regulatory success,” while a patient-based forecast from GlobalData estimates that the drug will become a blockbuster seller in 2028, with revenues rising significantly to the end of the forecast period in 2031.
Police presence shook ADA floor
While ADA 2026 was abuzz with excitement around new readouts, not all attendees were able to enjoy the atmosphere, as several diabetes experts were told to leave the conference by the police during the morning of the 5 June, as per MedPage Today, which first reported the news.
This comes after they distributed copies of an editorial detailing how the Trump administration had been negatively influencing diabetes research – with details on how cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were impacting the sector.
Those who were escorted out had their badges taken away and were told not to return to the convention centre, reports the New York Times. Many of those refused re-entry were due to present at the conference.
A statement by the ADA reads: “As many of you are now aware, an incident took place at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Scientific Sessions.
“As a 501(c)(3) organisation, the ADA has safeguards in place to ensure that it complies with all IRS regulations. This includes maintaining a strictly nonpartisan environment at all organisational events and functions while engaging across party affiliations to advance our mission. We have always, and will continue to welcome scientific inquiry, respectful dialogue, and diverse perspectives in the pursuit of better outcomes for people living with diabetes and obesity.“
