[HN Gopher] Pfizer ended up passing on my GLP-1 work back in the...
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       Pfizer ended up passing on my GLP-1 work back in the early '90s
        
       Author : rajlego
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2025-12-27 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
        
       | philipkglass wrote:
       | This is subscriber-walled, but the full article is available
       | here:
       | 
       | 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
       | 
       | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide#Legal_status
        
         | Scaevolus wrote:
         | Self-injecting feels like a scary, painful, dangerous procedure
         | and becomes completely boring by the third repetition.
        
       | hu3 wrote:
       | Nice.
       | 
       | This tells me that research on the drug is old and that increases
       | security on its use.
        
       | flobosg wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/2024.09.09-143955/https://www.statnews.co...
       | 
       | (2024)
        
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       (page generated 2025-12-27 23:00 UTC)