An Eli Lilly & Co. logo is seen on a pill bottle in this arranged photograph at a pharmacy in Princeton, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, Oct.
23, 2017. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images A new drug developed by Eli Lilly to treat diabetes helped patients lose up to 22.5% of their body weight in clinical trials, the drugmaker says.
If the clinical trials hold up to peer reviews, experts say it could be a game-changer in treating obesity.According to a news release from Eli Lilly, people who took the highest dose of the experimental drug lost an average of 52 pounds, or 22.5%.
Patients on the lowest dose lost 35 pounds on average, or 16% of their body weight. People who took a placebo lost 2.4%, or 5 pounds.The results of the study, one of four the drugmaker is doing on tirzepatide, are a "best-case scenario" for what researchers could have hoped for, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said."For a long time, medications for obesity have really come up well short of what I think both doctors and patients would find impressive," Ricks told CNBC. "And we know obesity is such a driver of long-term bad outcomes ...