Eli Lilly's experimental combination of eloralintide and Mounjaro delivered average weight loss of up to 23% in people with diabetes, strengthening the company's competitive edge against Novo Nordisk in the obesity and diabetes treatment market.
Participants who received the highest dose lost an average of 54 pounds over 48 weeks. Their A1C, a measure of average blood sugar, fell 2.9 percentage points from a baseline of 8.1%, with up to three-quarters reaching normal blood sugar levels, according to Bloomberg.
"This could open up even a next frontier in weight loss," Ken Custer, president of Lilly's cardiometabolic unit, stated.
Custer said the study sets a "new, even higher bar" but cautioned against comparing different studies.
Lilly shares rose as much as 2.6% earlier today before paring gains. Year to date, shares are up a little more than 10%, while competitor Novo Nordisk has slumped more than 20%.
The StudyThe Phase 2b trial, announced by Lilly Wednesday and presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Milan, randomized 367 adults with obesity or overweight and type 2 diabetes in the US and Argentina to placebo, eloralintide alone, tirzepatide alone, or one of four combinations of the two. Tirzepatide is the active ingredient in both Mounjaro and Lilly's obesity shot Zepbound. Lilly calls the combination EloraTZP.
Eloralintide mimics amylin, a hormone the pancreas releases alongside insulin that slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain. Tirzepatide hits two gut hormone receptors, GIP and GLP-1, so the combination works on three appetite and blood sugar pathways at once.
The results at 48 weeks, from an average starting weight of 232.4 pounds:
Arm Weight change Pounds A1C change Eloralintide 9 mg + tirzepatide 15 mg -23.3% -54.1 -2.9 Eloralintide 6 mg + tirzepatide 10 mg -19.9% -46.2 -2.6 Eloralintide 6 mg + tirzepatide 5 mg -19.4% -45.1 -2.7 Eloralintide 3 mg + tirzepatide 5 mg -13.2% -30.7 -2.2 Tirzepatide 15 mg alone -14.8% -34.4 -2.4 Eloralintide 6 mg alone -12.3% -28.6 -1.4 Placebo -3.0% -7.0 -0.3Source: Eli Lilly. Efficacy estimand, i.e. assuming all participants stayed on treatment.
In other words, adding eloralintide to the top dose of Mounjaro bought an extra 20 pounds of weight loss. Oddly, the highest dose of eloralintide on its own (9 mg) did worse than the 6 mg dose, at 11.1%.
Weight loss is typically harder to come by in diabetics, which is what makes the number stand out. Analysts at Citi wrote that the 23.3% figure is "comparable to tirzepatide in patients without T2D" and came in "comfortably above our 17% bar." For comparison, Lilly's triple-hormone shot retatrutide produced 20.8% weight loss in diabetics in its Phase 3 TRIUMPH-2 trial, and that took 80 weeks.
Study investigator Julio Rosenstock offered a very colorful description of the new GLP-1 wonder drug. Having nicknamed Mounjaro "King Kong," with retatrutide already claiming "Godzilla," Rosenstock called the new combination the "Incredible Hulk." Rosenstock, a University of Texas diabetes researcher, coined the first two in 2023: "We know that tirzepatide (Mounjaro) is the King Kong of the GLP-1s. And when I look at retatrutide, I think that there is no question that Godzilla is smiling."
The CatchRosenstock cautioned that not all patients need to lose that much weight. At the highest dose, 27% of participants stopped taking the drug because of side effects. More than four-fifths reported a side effect of some kind, with roughly half experiencing nausea.
Across the four combination arms, Lilly reported discontinuation rates due to adverse events of 10.8% to 27%, versus 2.9% for tirzepatide alone. The side effects were mostly gastrointestinal and hit hardest during dose escalation. Citi's analysts blamed starting both drugs at once and said a gentler Phase 3 titration "could preserve efficacy while improving adherence." Custer told CNBC Lilly will adjust the dosing, "and we expect that we'll end up with a very favorable balance of efficacy and tolerability."
Lilly vs. NovoThe results add competitive pressure on Novo, which pioneered the approach with CagriSema, a combination of its amylin treatment cagrilintide and semaglutide, the active ingredient in its blockbuster Wegovy.
That drug has already been bloodied by Lilly. In February, CagriSema failed to prove it was even as good as Mounjaro in the head-to-head REDEFINE 4 trial, with 23% weight loss after 84 weeks versus 25.5% for tirzepatide. Novo filed CagriSema with the FDA in December 2025 and expects a decision by late 2026.
Novo also lost the fight for the next amylin drug. In November, Pfizer outbid it for Metsera in a roughly $10 billion bidding war over the biotech's monthly amylin candidate. Meanwhile Mounjaro overtook Merck's Keytruda as the world's best-selling drug in the first quarter, with $8.7 billion in sales.
Lilly plans to begin late-stage studies of the new combination by year-end, using a single co-formulated injection rather than the two separate shots used in this trial. Eloralintide is already in Phase 3 on its own, after producing up to 20.1% weight loss in non-diabetics in a 48-week Phase 2 study.
Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 08:00Authored by Ted Snider via The Libertarian Institute
On September 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Canada where he and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a 100-year partnership "elevat[ing] the relationship between their countries into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and confirming their aligned nature."
Canada already has a special relationship with Ukraine. Before the war, Canada had the largest Ukrainian community in the Ukrainian diaspora with 1,209,805 Ukrainian-Canadians. Canada is the fifth largest financial contributor to Ukraine after only the United States, the European Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom with over $16 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid.
Carney said that “Canada will always stand in solidarity with Ukraine” and that “there is no qualification to our commitment.” There is little wrong with that: Ukraine was invaded by Russia and taken advantage of by the West.
But there are two problems with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The first is practical.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Canada has contributed $8.5 billion in military support to Ukraine. The Comprehensive Partnership includes a joint declaration on defense and security co-operation. During the official visit, Carney announced new investments to support Ukraine’s defense, including $350 million for interceptor missiles for air defence.
The practical problem is that Ukraine is black hole into which money intended for defense disappears. This is a problem well known to Ukraine’s partners who, nonetheless, keep pouring money in with a blind eye to the problem. Earlier this month, following close on the heels of a U.S. $100 billion European Union loan to Ukraine, Kiev surprised the European Union with a request for an additional $27 billion to address a shortfall that was difficult to explain. The request “unsettled” European officials, some of whom privately worried “whether money is being spent efficiently or whether needs are being overstated.”
A recent New York Times investigation found that seven of Ukraine’s ten top military contractors continued to be awarded contracts after Kiev knew they were facing investigations for fraud, corruption, or failure to deliver on deals they were paid for. Eighteen companies won contracts despite defaulting on previous ones. Millions were thrown away by inexplicably, and conveniently, awarding contracts to the highest bidder. Government audits show that in one year of the war alone, Ukraine lost $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign aid to “fraud, waste and mismanagement.” Sending hundreds of millions more to Ukraine sounds great. But to whom will it go?
There is a second problem with the 100-year Comprehensive Partnership that is deeper. Carney said the Strategic Partnership is based on the two countries “aligned nature.” But there are important aspects that do not align.
Canada is a federalist country that officially recognizes more than one culture and language. The Carney administration recently walked away from negotiating a trade agreement with the United States partly in defense of its sovereign right to protect French culture, French language, and its official bilingualism. Ukraine has been locked in a civil war since 2014 to protect the opposite: a monist vision of Ukrainian society that rejects federalism and recognizes only one culture as Ukrainian while suppressing the language, culture, and religion of ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine in Crimea, the Donbas, and the southeast. It specifically denies the pluralist alternative that is a defining feature of Canadian identity. Rather than aligning in their natures, in this essential aspect, the two countries are the antithesis of each other.
Canada has confronted this blind spot before. In 2023, Yaroslav Hunka received two standing ovations in Canada’s Parliament as “a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians” and as “a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero,” despite having served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of Adolf Hitler’s SS.
Carney insisted that “Canadians understand in our bones the importance of your struggle” and explained that the reason “there is no qualification to our commitment” to Ukraine is “because your cause—freedom, democracy, sovereignty—is our cause.”
A standing ovation from the Canadian parliament and then he also got a personal meeting with Trudeau and Zelensky.
'Waffen SS' veteran Yaroslav Hunka must feel very loved in Canada...... pic.twitter.com/5BjwrWsWtS
It may be “our cause,” but the historical record is less clear that it is their cause. Zelensky has formally banned eleven opposition parties, including the Opposition Platform for Life party that was once the second largest party in the Ukrainian parliament, though they all condemned Russia’s invasion and contributed to Russia’s defence.
He has restricted freedom of information, unifying all television sources into a single source of television news, and increased the censorship powers of the state over print and online media.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ukraine’s largest church organization, has been banned by Zelensky though Ukraine’s constitution protects freedom of religion, despite that the Primate of the UOC expressed the church’s loyalty to Ukraine and condemnation of Russia’s invasion.
Cultural and linguistic rights for minorities have fared no better than political and religious rights and freedom of expression. Pursuing the monist interpretation of Ukraine, Zelensky has gone down a path of abolishing any hint of Russian culture. Legislation has erased the Russian language, making Ukrainian the sole language of government, schools, universities, culture, publishing and media.
It is fine for Canada to “stand in solidarity with Ukraine.” But we should not be blind to Ukraine’s struggles and challenges. If Ukraine is to avoid civil war after the war with Russia and if Ukraine is to have a chance of joining the European Union and orienting toward the west, they, too, are going to have to confront these challenges.
Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 07:40The State of Tennessee spent Wednesday trying to carry out a death sentence it has had on the books for thirty years, and ended the night with the condemned woman in an ambulance.
Christa Gail Pike, 50 - the only woman on Tennessee's death row - was still breathing, audibly snoring, and maintaining a heartbeat after prison staff administered two doses of pentobarbital at Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Media witnesses were escorted out around 8:53 p.m. local time while her snoring could still be heard. Pike was subsequently rushed to an off-site hospital, prompting Governor Bill Lee to halt all remaining executions for the year and order a third-party review.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a Job Corps classmate she lured into the Knoxville woods in January 1995 at age 18 - where she bashed the girl's skull in with a chunk of asphalt after carving a pentagram into the victim's chest with a friend. Pike started showing off pieces of Slemmer's skull at school, at which point she was arrested (with a chunk of skull found in her pocket).
Fox 17 investigative reporter Kelly Avellino posted that Pike "appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after" before being transported.
Unbelieveable. Officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Gail Pike, witnesses said, after the lethal injection was administered. Pike appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after. Pike is now en route to the hosptial. https://t.co/oUfWXlhAsx
— Kelly Avellino (@KellyAvellino) October 1, 2026 A day that started in court and ended in an ambulancePike was scheduled to die at 10 a.m. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in roughly 200 years, and the 19th woman executed in the United States since 1976.
That morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a short 2-1 stay. The Tennessee attorney general immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate it. Just before 6 p.m., the Court complied, issuing a two-sentence order devoid of reasoning. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, with Sotomayor writing that "Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in [her] own life.'" She added that in capital cases, an "appreciation of our own fallibility" demands caution "before acting irretrievably." With the legal roadblocks cleared, the state proceeded.
The judicial scramble followed Governor Lee's denial of clemency two days prior. On Sept. 28, he announced that after "deliberate consideration," he would uphold "the sentence of the State of Tennessee."
What the witnesses actually sawTennessee Lookout and the Tennessean reconstructed the chaotic scene inside the chamber using accounts from media witnesses, including reporters from WBIR, WKRN, WVLT, the Nashville Banner, and the AP:
WKRN's Tori Gessner, a veteran of multiple Tennessee executions, told the Lookout: "Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg." Nashville Banner's Steven Hale added: "I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened, happened behind a closed curtain... When Christa Pike was still alive, we could still hear her breathing, but we could not see what was going on."
Shortly after 9 p.m., ambulances and fire trucks were seen departing Riverbend with their emergency lights activated.
The state's line, and the lawyers' lineMore than two hours after the botched execution, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter issued the following statement:
"The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility."
So if two rounds fail to kill the inmate, protocol dictates the execution ends and the inmate goes to a hospital.
Pike's attorneys offered the following statement:
"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
In an emergency motion filed while Pike was still in the chamber, her defense informed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee that she "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring." Attorney Kelly Gleason stated Pike desperately needed immediate medical care, noting that counsel couldn't get state officials on the phone to halt the process. Judge Clifton L. Corker ultimately ruled the motion moot because the state had already informed the court that medical care was underway. Pike's current condition remains unreleased, though one of her lawyers told the BBC she was "being provided life-saving measures."
Dr. Joel Zivot, a medical expert retained by the defense, told the BBC it is "very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury." He suggested Pike likely never absorbed a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to stop her breathing and circulation. Notably, no independent toxicology report has been produced.
Lee hits pauseAt approximately 11:16 p.m., Governor Lee halted another execution scheduled for later this year. Via the Tennessean:
"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective. ... Therefore, the remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year."
Lee ordered a "comprehensive, third-party review" of the Pike debacle - while Gary Wayne Sutton, who was scheduled to die on Dec. 3 for the 1992 murders of Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam in Blount County - was spared for now.
Lee had explicitly declined to halt Pike's execution. His attorney general's office spent the afternoon racing to the Supreme Court to ensure it happened Wednesday night rather than next week. The protocol the AG approved is the very same one Carter proudly claimed was followed to the letter. Whether it was "effective" is a separate question, and on Wednesday night, the undeniable answer was no.
Tyler Durden Thu, 10/01/2026 - 07:00