(Eli Pacheco, Headline USA) Pfizer on Friday said it would stop trials of its latest weight-loss pill due to the severe side effects, according to CNBC.
Six hundred obese adults without Type 2 diabetes participated in recent trial for danuglipron which tracked weight loss after 26 or 32 weeks, at dosages of 40 to 200 milligrams.
Obese patients taking it lost weight but struggled to tolerate the drug, according to a study.
Patients experienced mild gastrointestinal side effects, said the report.
As many as 73% of patients experienced nausea when taking the drug. As many as 47% vomited, and 25% got diarrhea.
More than half of the trial patients stopped using danuglipron.
Pfizer said it would continue plans for a phase-two trial of a once-a-day version, early in 2024. That trial will “inform a path forward,” the company said in a release.
Pfizer shares closed 5% lower after the announcement.
Pfizer seeks a slice of the $10 billion weight-loss drug market currently dominated by Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic, which use a breakthrough procedure by mimicking a recently discovered gut hormone, GLP-1, sending signals to the brain when full.
But the pharmaceutical giant stopped trials of another weight-loss drug in June after data revealed elevated liver enzymes in some patients.
With COVID vaccine demand waning considerably, Pfizer is also under fire amid recent reports that DNA fragments were discovered in its mRNA vaccines, potentially creating serious health implications that could be transmitted from one generation to the next.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped develop the mRNA vaccine, was among the experts presenting to Congress in a recent panel about the health risks associated with them. He called genotoxicity risks “proven,” saying that DNA fragments in the vaccine could cause cancer.
