Orforglipron

Taylor Tieden for BioSpace The deals will help Lilly diversify its portfolio that is heavily weighted on the obesity juggernaut tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss. Eli Lilly announced back-to-back business development deals on Wednesday, including a $1.2 billion play to buy inflammatory disease biotech Ventyx Biosciences. Lilly offered $14 per share in cash for California-based Ventyx and its pipeline of oral drugs for inflammatory diseases. The deal is expected to complete in the first half of 2026, pending certain conditions, including stockholder approval and antitrust clearances. The deal will help Lilly diversify its portfolio that is heavily weighted on the obesity juggernaut tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss. The company’s revenue is expected to more than double over the next few years, mostly thanks to forthcoming obesity pill orforglipron. The star of the Ventyx takeover is the biotech’s NLRP3 portfolio, a pair of mid-stage oral drugs that target a key protein involved in the inflammatory cascade. Before the Ventyx acquisition, NLRP3 was a blind spot in Lilly’s pipeline . Lilly’s takeover of Ventyx “demonstrates clear interest from big pharma in the NLRP3 inhibitor class to address a broad range of neuroinflammatory, cardiometabolic, and cardiovascular diseases,” analysts at William Blair told investors in a Thursday morning note. The deal could have some readthrough to other companies in this space, including Neumora, Neurocrine and BioAge, the analysts added. Among the NLRP3 assets that Lilly will get is VTX3232, designed to be able to penetrate into the central nervous system, being tested for Parkinson’s disease and other cardiometabolic conditions. In October 2025, Ventyx announced that the drug reduced levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein—an inflammation indicator—by roughly 80% in patients with obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors. The other NLRP3 asset, dubbed VTX2735, is restricted to the peripheral nervous system and is being trialed for recurrent pericarditis. Aside from these NLRP3 programs, Lilly will also snag Ventyx’s inflammatory bowel disease drugs , including the S1P1R modulator tamuzimod, which has completed Phase II testing for ulcerative colitis, and the allosteric TYK2 blocker VTX958 for Crohn’s disease. Also on Wednesday, Lilly entered into a global strategic partnership with the Seattle- and Massachusetts-based InduPro to advance novel cancer therapies. Specifically, the pharma is looking to leverage InduPro’s platform to develop bispecific and multispecific antibodies that can target antigens that appear close to each other on the surface of cancer cells. Such an approach, according to the companies’ press announcement, offers “improved safety, potency, and tumor selectivity.” Lilly is putting $950 million on the line for the InduPro partnership, which will include up to three targets. The pharma has also promised an undisclosed equity investment in InduPro. Wednesday’s pair of partnerships comes after Lilly on Tuesday revealed a second agreement with existing partner Nimbus Therapeutics. For $55 million upfront and up to $1.3 billion in milestones, the pharma will collaborate with its Boston-based partner on a preclinical oral obesity drug. The companies first linked up in 2022 to develop drugs for metabolic diseases

Eli Lilly's anticipated launches of two cardiometabolic medicines stand out in Clarivate's Drugs to Watch report for 2026. Johnson & Johnson also has two drugs on this year's list. Eli Lilly has dominated headlines in recent months, recently taking the crown as the most valuable company in the biopharma industry by market cap. And the song remains much the same in analytics firm Clarivate's Drugs to Watch 2026 report.The annual outlook, which identifies (PDF) 11 potential blockbusters and transformative medicines, highlights two cardiometabolic treatments from the Indianapolis company, which have yet to be approved but could ultimately take the place of its current cash cows Mounjaro and Zepbound.Lilly’s investigational treatments are daily GLP-1 pill orforglipron, which is slated for an FDA decision by March of this year, and triple-action, weekly injection retatrutide, which Clarivate expects will be ready for launch in 2028.Both assets are under development in obesity, diabetes and a host of other related indications. The Clarivate analysts project that orforglipron will generate a whopping $11.1 billion in obesity sales and $5.2 billion in diabetes sales in 2031, though the forecasts partially overlap due to shared populations. Retatrutide is expected to deliver $10 billion in obesity revenue and $20 billion in diabetes revenue, again with some overlap between estimates.Clarivate’s report highlights the continued ascent of the obesity and metabolic disease market, as well as how Lilly has positioned itself to take full advantage. Morgan Stanley projects the overall cardiometabolic medicine market will reach $150 billion by 2035.“The GLP-1 receptor agonist (RA) revolution is entering a new phase of maturation and diversification,” Clarivate wrote. “Orforglipron and retatrutide exemplify the next generation of metabolic therapies: oral formulations that promise improved adherence, triple-hormone mechanisms that deliver superior weight loss and expanded therapeutic applications spanning from brain health to renal disease.” As for the 2031 sales projections of the drugs on Clarivate’s 2026 list, orforglipron and retatrutide eclipse all others. The remaining medicines Clarivate highlighted have much lower sales projections than Lilly's, with no others expected to surpass the $2-billion threshold in 2031, according to Clarivate’s reckoning.Johnson & Johnson is the only other company with two drugs named—bladder cancer treatment Inlexzo, which gained FDA approval in September of last year, and immunotherapy icotrokinra, which Clarivate expects will be launched this year. The analysts project 2031 sales of the duo at $1.8 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively.Inlexzo made the grade with Clarivate for its bladder-sparing, “paradigm-shifting” drug-releasing system, which allows for extended release of the chemotherapy gemcitabine directly to patients' bladders through an intravesical system that can be placed in minutes in an outpatient setting.Icotrokinra, meanwhile, is poised to become the first-to-market targeted oral peptide designed to block the interleukin (IL)-23 receptor, which plays a key role in the inflammatory process in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis as well as ulcerative colitis, Clarivate said.Clarivate also singled out two protein degrader cancer drugs, including BeOne Medicine’s BGB-16673. The once-daily oral treatment is set for a potential launch in 2027 and has the potential to become a “paradigm-changing treatment for B-cell malignancies,” the report notes. The asset could be effective at treating multiple hematological cancers as well, according to the analysts. Clarivate projects the drug's sales at $1.2 billion in 2031.The other protein degrader on Clarivate's radar is Bristol Myers Squibb’s mezigdomide, which is expected to launch in 2026 and could generate $1.5 billion in 2031. The oral second-generation cereblon E3 ligase modulator could be a new option for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who've previously been treated with immunomodulatory drugs, Clarivate said.Yet another oncology drug on the list comes in the form of Celcuity’s gedatolisib, which is set up for launch this year and is expected to deliver $1.1 billion in sales in 2031.Clarivate also selected Otsuka’s voyxact, which is expected to launch in 2026 and generate $955 million in 2031 sales. The first-in-class selective A proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL) inhibitor could serve as a “high-impact, disease-modifying entrant" in IgA nephropathy (IgAN), also known as Berger’s disease, the Clarivate team predicts. The analytics team made another rare disease pick in GSK’s Exdensur, which was approved in December and is expected to generate sales of $510 million in 2031. The monoclonal antibody, which targets IL-5, is the first approved ultra-long-acting biologic with a six-month dosing schedule for severe asthma, providing greater convenience over currently available IL-5 inhibitors that require monthly or bimonthly dosing. Also on Clarivate’s list are two drugs that recently suffered untimely rejections from the FDA. Sanofi’s multiple sclerosis treatment tolebrutinib is a potential first-in-class, brain-penetrant Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor. But its prospects have been dampened by both efficacy and safety concerns raised in an FDA complete response letter (CRL).Corcept Therapeutics’ Cushing syndrome drug relacorilant also was hit with an unexpected CRL from the U.S. regulator last month, with the agency suggesting it did not have enough information from the company to make a benefit-risk assessment of the treatment. That medication is also due for an FDA decision in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer this July, Clarivate pointed out.