Pfizer bets on weight-loss drugs to power its next decade

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Boshoff sees berobenatide as the first step in a broader metabolic health portfolio that will eventually include pills, combination therapies and potentially even new classes of treatment. It’s also pursuing even longer-acting therapies that could make dosing more convenient, including early data from another experimental compound that gives Boshoff reason to believe it could be taken every three months.

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Pfizer isn’t alone; many drug companies are taking similar pipeline strategies. Amgen Inc., for example, is in late-stage studies with a shot that can be taken monthly — or possibly even less frequently. However, Amgen’s drug MariTide was tied to a high rate of vomiting in early trials. The company is studying a lower starting dose in hopes that it’s a gentler option for patients.

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Lilly and Novo both already sell weight-loss pills, which became enormously popular as soon as they launched. Several other companies including AstraZeneca Plc and Structure Therapeutics Inc. are working on their own versions. Pfizer, meanwhile, is tapping a unit of China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. called YaoPharma to help it develop a pill after its internal efforts were unsuccessful.

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It’s also hoping scientists from Metsera — and new senior hires in obesity — will help revitalize its internal research and development efforts.

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“We’ve had the good fortune of bringing a lot of that Metsera talent over, and that’s in discovery and development,” said Boshoff. “That alone was sort of a big boost to what we already had in a very mature research and development organization.”

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Looking ahead

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With highly effective obesity treatments like Novo’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound already on the market, doctors say the next wave of medicines will need to be meaningfully better in terms of side effects, convenience or treating related health conditions. Pfizer is running 10 large-scale, pivotal trials in obesity and related conditions for berobenatide alone in 2026, which is no small feat. And that’s less than half of the company’s broader obesity program. Even if all goes well, it’s still several years away from reaching patients.

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Pfizer executives contend that winning in obesity will require more than a successful drug. Success, they say, will depend on the ability to move quickly, manufacture medicines at massive scale and persuade patients, doctors and insurance companies to embrace them.

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Jim List, head of internal medicine, said Pfizer’s commercial infrastructure is a major advantage as obesity treatment increasingly moves into primary-care settings. List, who Pfizer hired last year to re-energize the unit, described obesity as a natural fit for a company whose biggest successes, including the cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor and blood thinner Eliquis, were built around large physician networks and broad patient populations.

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“We have primary care in our DNA,” List said.

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The company is also using a deal with China-based Hangzhou Sciwind Bioscience Co. as a test run of sorts for its commercial organization, Boshoff said, allowing the company to gain insights about launching a successful obesity medication in a major market and build direct-to-consumer strategies before its products reach US patients.

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While Lilly and Novo struggled early on to make enough of their medicines to meet demand, Pfizer already possesses much of the infrastructure needed to manufacture obesity drugs at a global scale, Boshoff said, including eight sterile injectable facilities around the world. The company also has moved production of Metsera’s drugs in-house, from a contract manufacturer, Boshoff said. “We are internalizing everything, because we can,” he said.