Pfizer appoints former J&J executive to lead obesity drug development

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

(Reuters) -Pfizer on Thursday named James List as the head of the drugmaker’s Internal Medicine portfolio, where he will oversee the development of its closely watched oral weight-loss drug candidate along with those that treat heart conditions and blood disorders.

The drugmaker said in January it would go “all in” to develop its experimental obesity drug, danuglipron, recruiting more experts in the area to “make better and more sound decisions.”

Before joining Pfizer, List headed the cardiovascular and metabolism unit at Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen division, where he was responsible for the discovery and development of new medicines in these areas.

Pfizer is testing multiple doses for a once-a-day version of danuglipron after scrapping the development of a twice-daily version of the drug in late 2023.

Pfizer said in January that it expects to have data from dose-testing studies in a few months and that it could start a late-stage study of the drug in the second half of this year.

Danuglipron is part of the second generation of oral weight-loss drugs, under development by companies including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, that will offer patients a more convenient alternative to injections.

Some analysts project the weight-loss drug market, currently dominated by injectable treatments of the GLP-1 class such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, to be worth more than $150 billion in annual sales by the early 2030s.

GLP-1 drugs mimic a gut hormone that helps control blood sugar levels and triggers a feeling of fullness.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)