5 ms·
Pfizer ended up passing on my GLP-1 work back in the early '90s (2024)
https://web.archive.org/web/20240909093450/https://www.statnews.com/2024/09/09/glp-1-history-pfizer-john-baxter-jeffrey-flier-calbio-metabio/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240909093450/https://www.statn...
- philipkglass 9mo agoThis is subscriber-walled, but the full article is available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240909093450/https://www.statnews.com/2024/09/09/glp-1-history-pfizer-john-baxter-jeffrey-flier-calbio-metabio/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240909093450/https://www.statn... The key reason Pfizer passed was that executives didn't think patients would accept a new therapy that required injection to administer: Despite our emerging results, the Pfizer executives in charge of research and external alliances told us the company did not want to develop a new diabetes therapy that required injection, a space held exclusively by insulin since 1922. They gave us a year to find a way to deliver GLP-1 via transnasal, transcutaneous, or oral administration. Effective delivery by any of these approaches would have been great, but we knew success was unlikely in the year they gave us. Our effort was predictably unsuccessful, and after four years, Pfizer terminated our agreement as permitted under the alliance contract. The first commercial GLP-1 receptor agonist, Exenatide, went to market as an injectable medication in 2005 [1]. Orally delivered GLP-1 medications didn't come to market until 2019 when orally dosed semaglutide was approved as Rybelsus [2]. Now that injected GLP-1 drugs are among the most-prescribed drugs in America, I wonder if drug company executives are going to be more receptive to drug candidates that require injections. There are a lot of molecules (especially peptides) that are degraded by the digestive system; maybe people will be more willing to inject medications when so many have started self-injecting for GLP-1 drugs or know someone who has. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exenatide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exenatide [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide#Legal_status
- Scaevolus 9mo agoSelf-injecting feels like a scary, painful, dangerous procedure and becomes completely boring by the third repetition.
- s5300 9mo ago[dead]
- stavros 9mo agoIt really helps that the needles are hair-thin and short.
- firesteelrain 9mo agoThe proprietary injector mechanism like for Mounjaro makes it really easy for users. Even compounded versions of it use tiny insulin needles that have near zero pain when injected into the subcutaneous portion of like the stomach while pinched. Source: I took compounded Mounjaro and compounded Ozempic/semaglutide.
- nextos 9mo agoFWIW, Novo Nordisk also tried to kill their GLP-1 effort several times according to the project lead, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen: https://archive.is/oLnBl https://archive.is/oLnBl In large organizations, I guess a big chunk of success comes from being able to navigate all these political ups and downs.
- RobotToaster 9mo agoI wonder how many other great medical innovations have disappeared because of such bureaucracy.
- DANmode 9mo agoHow long do you have? https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vaccine-beer-polyomavirus-chris-buck https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vaccine-beer-polyomaviru...
- estearum 9mo agoBureaucracy? This is the same type of go/no-go decision that R&D orgs have to make with incomplete information and immense costs every day. But with less complete information (no in-human data → 70-90% failure rate) and more immense costs (a couple hundred million dollars to get it through trials). The problem is the cost and risk profile of drug development. With those parameters where they are, there will be countless "bureaucratic errors" of foregone opportunities, most of which we'll never even learn about.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoTechnically, they disappeared because of limited resources. If every pharmaceutical organization had unlimited funding to run unlimited trials, then they would.
- petesergeant 9mo agoIt's worth bearing in mind that the reality of self-injector pens with tiny needles today is not the reality of syringes 30 years ago.
- randycupertino 9mo agoPfizer has been resting on their laurels ever since it struck gold with boner pills and Lipitor. Viagra made it rain beaucoup bucks and rewired the entire firm to prioritize commercial sales and marketing over real scientific clinical development. Pfizer is optimized for sales over research and development. Now they primarily acquire and license a bunch of me-too drugs and late-stage acquisitions vs creating their own homegrown breakthroughs. Pfizer's strengths are regulatory compliance, M&A and global manufacturing. They suck at research and clinical development. Losing the GLP-1 race was predictable as they simply don't prioritize emerging science compared to other mid-sized and large pharmas.
- hu3 9mo agoNice. This tells me that research on the drug is old and that increases security on its use.
- stavros 9mo agoIt's so old, the patent is nearing expiration.
- wombatpm 9mo agoThat’s usually the case for new classes of drugs.
- scheme271 9mo agoThe first generation of GLP-1 agonists are out of patent protection. Teva is producing a generic liraglutide (aka Victoza / Saxenda). Ozempic (semiglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) have protection until after 2031 in the US, I think it's less in other countries.
- epistasis 9mo agoGLP-1 is a drug target, not a drug. It's actually a hormone. There are many drugs that have been developed since then, and each approval seems to have slightly better drug properties. The age of research on a drug is not very indicative of safety, either. Rather, broad study and time are far better. I'd take five years of clinical trials on hundreds of thousands of people over 5000 years old research on hundreds of people.
- refurb 9mo agoNot necessarily. If it just sits on a shelf, there is no new data on it's use in humans.
- flobosg 9mo agohttps://archive.ph/2024.09.09-143955/https://www.statnews.com/2024/09/09/glp-1-history-pfizer-john-baxter-jeffrey-flier-calbio-metabio/ https://archive.ph/2024.09.09-143955/https://www.statnews.co... (2024)
- xvector 9mo agoIncredibly bothersome that these executives can rise so high and get paid so much despite having such terrible decisionmaking skills. An injection to cure obesity is a small price to ask, as any person that has been obese will tell you. They could have determined this from a simple survey. What was the human cost of their decision? Maybe an entire delayed decade of progress? How many people died, that could have been saved? I would love to meet some of these executives and understand what they were thinking, and if they understand/regret the impact of their foolishness.
- dfadsadsf 9mo agoAt the time it was not clear that GLP-1 solves obesity problem so effectively - many drugs suppress hunger (eg amphetamines), it's just that GLP-1 works long term and does not have significant side effects. Hard to predict without hindsight. Insulin is injectable so GLP-1 was thought to be at best marginal improvement over already existing protocol - so likely profitable product but not excessively so. Company has limited resources so decisions on cuts have to be made and some of those decisions are naturally wrong - drugs are unpredictable. On regret - they missed on 30B+ of profits so of cause they regret it.
- abeyer 9mo agoSo much of pharmaceutical development is educated guess work. For every promising compound even brought to human trials there were likely 10s-100s of others that were abandoned or neglected for lack of resources to pursue them all. Without the benefit of hindsight there are bound to be mistakes made.
- epistasis 9mo ago> An injection to cure obesity is a small price to ask, as any person that has been obese will tell you. They could have determined this from a simple survey. You're missing the primary point: GLP-1 was investigated as another me-too diabetes drug, for which there were many injectable drugs available. It wasn't until much much later that it was discovered to be an obesity drug. It was a completely coincidental and accidental discovery. It turns out that most science is like that. We make the most important discoveries unexpectedly and by chance. Which is why you should always distrust the politicians that mock and ridicule science for sounding ordinary or obvious. That's where the real magic happens.
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- chiefalchemist 9mo ago> Despite our emerging results, the Pfizer executives in charge of research and external alliances told us the company did not want to develop a new diabetes therapy that required injection, Well, COVID certainly put an end to those fears (by consumers). Coincidentally, obesity was also said to increase COVID risk. Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it - no pun intended - any better.
- Traubenfuchs 9mo agoWait -your angle is that covid vaccination increased people‘s acceptance of injectable pharmaceutics and covid / its vaccine was made up (or blown out of proportion) so people would get more ozempic?
- chiefalchemist 9mo agoNo. Not my angle. That is exactly what happened. Injections are no longer a only-if-absolutely-necessary. The stigma is mitigated.
- duskwuff 9mo agoFlu shots were accepted as a routine thing long before 2020. I don't think the stigma existed in the way you're imagining.
- chiefalchemist 9mo agoAccepted? By who? You’ve misread the room
- butvacuum 9mo agoAm I the only one that remembers a HUUUGE public media push in the US framing "injecting [any] drug is bad"? with a complete lack of reguard for diabetics, people with fatal allergies, and a host of other people who need to carry, or use needles w/ meds regularly?