Pharma

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Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are working to bring the next generation of GLP-1s to market.

The two pharma giants have already made billions from their blockbuster diabetes drugs

Ozempic and Mounjaro as well as their weight loss counterparts Wegovy and Zepbound. Now, they’re looking to create more effective versions of these medications that could also treat a range of other conditions such as heart and kidney disease.

The two GLP-1s experts say may receive FDA approval next are Novo’s CagriSema and Lilly’s retatrutide. The medications are being tested as treatments for both obesity and diabetes, but Novo asked the FDA in December to approve CagriSema as an obesity treatment first.

Lilly did not respond to a request for comment on which indication the company plans to submit retatrutide for first, but Daniel Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific and product officer and president of Lilly Research Laboratories, said during the company’s August 5 earnings call that with the completion of two recent clinical trials, “we now have the clinical data package to support global registrations in obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, and knee osteoarthritis pain.”

The market for obesity treatments is significantly larger than that for Type 2 diabetes. An estimated 1 billion people worldwide have obesity, according to the World Health Organization, while an estimated 589 million people worldwide have diabetes, with more than 90% of that population living with Type 2, according to the International Diabetes Foundation.

The R&D efforts highlight “how Lilly and Novo are not just sitting still and hoping for the best,” Evan Seigerman, managing director and head of healthcare research at BMO Capital Markets, told Healthcare Brew.

Read the rest of the story here.—MA

      

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Pharma

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The future of cancer treatment could be vaccines.

Two large pharma companies, Moderna and Merck, announced on Aug. 19 positive initial results from a Phase 3 clinical trial testing an mRNA-based vaccine that could prevent recurrence or distant metastasis of melanoma in certain patients when combined with Merck’s Keytruda immunotherapy.

It marks the first time this kind of treatment, called an individualized neoantigen therapy, has shown such promise, according to Moderna.

“I think it is the start of a new era to a degree,” Hussein Tawbi, professor of melanoma medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Healthcare Brew. “People have been trying to do this for decades, and this is the first technology and setting that allowed us to make this highly effective.”

Tawbi was the principal investigator for the Phase 3 trial at MD Anderson, one of the 165 trial sites. He also serves as executive director of the immuno-oncology clinical drug development program at the center.

Following the announcement, Moderna’s stock shot up 177% to $174.38 per share, raising the company’s valuation from $25 billion to $69 billion in a single day, Inc. reported. The stock has dipped since, and was $134.34 as of late morning on Aug. 28. That’s still up 113% from $62.96, the price at which Moderna closed on Aug. 18, the day before the trial news was released.

Merck’s stock had a much more modest reaction, closing up 13% at $152.20 on Aug. 19. As of late morning Aug. 28, it was $147.81, a slight dip but still up 9% from its price before the news.

Keep reading here.—MA

      

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Payers

Illustration: Amelia Kinsinger, Photo: Adobe Stock

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace is having a wild time lately.

The biggest, most obvious twist? Enhanced premium tax credits expired, to kick off the year. Enrollment dropped by 1.2 million and counting, per Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data.

There was another important change, though, happening at the same time.

Millions more marketplace enrollees are now eligible to open health savings accounts (HSAs) thanks to a provision of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act that made all bronze and catastrophic marketplace plans eligible.

Get a full breakdown of what HSAs are.—CC

vital signs

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: 26.7%. That was for-profit, Dallas-based health system Tenet Healthcare’s operating margin in Q2 on $5.6 billion in revenue. (Becker’s)

Quote: “I just don’t believe in all this secrecy. If they’re not up to something nefarious, why do they have to do it all in secret?”—Hob Bryan, a Mississippi state senator, on the lack of transparency around the federal Rural Health Transformation Program (KFF Health News)

Read: Containing a small measles outbreak in the Denver area cost half a million dollars. Take a look at why it’s so expensive to fight measles. (the Washington Post)

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