\n Daniel Skovronsky: These overlooked medications could be the GLP-1 drugs of the future
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\nAt the same time, Wall Street is thinking about how GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs could impact everything from airline stocks to the shares of snack makers. As a result, Skovronsky lands on The MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rapid-fire innovations from Lilly and its closest competitors have stirred controversy as well as headlines. Researchers, policymakers and industry players are debating whether the benefits of next-generation Alzheimer\u2019s treatments can justify their considerable costs and risks\u2013and whether Medicare and employers can cover pricey new weight-loss drugs without going broke.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the stock market cheers and health economists grumble, Skovronsky is quietly working toward an innovation that could silence some of the naysayers and dramatically improve the health of many older adults. \u201cI\u2019m extremely optimistic,\u201d Skovronsky told MarketWatch in a late October interview, about the potential for Lilly\u2019s experimental Alzheimer\u2019s therapy to prevent the onset of Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms\u2013rather than just slowing the progression of the disease, as shown in clinical trial data released earlier this year.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Skovronsky, such an achievement would cap a career-long pursuit of earlier diagnosis and effective treatment of the devastating disease, which affects about 6.7 million people in the U.S. age 65 and older. Skovronsky published research in the field back in 1998, when he was at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and went on to start a company, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, that developed a diagnostic agent to help evaluate patients for Alzheimer\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is actually my life\u2019s work,\u201d Skovronsky said. Lilly is now testing its experimental therapy donanemab in patients who have the pathology of Alzheimer\u2019s in their brains but don\u2019t yet have symptoms of the disease. Skovronsky is hopeful the drug can prevent the onset of symptoms, he said, based on the patterns seen in late-stage trials of donanemab in people who already have symptoms. \u201cThe treatment effect was the largest in the patients who had the earliest stage of disease,\u201d he said. \u201cSo now we\u2019re going even earlier, and we extrapolate out that maybe the effect will be bigger.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While it will take time to see results of the newer trial, he said, \u201cwe can\u2019t wait to see the data in a couple of years and hopefully for the first time have something that can offer the possibility of preventing this disease for some people.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Such a decisive step forward could quiet some concerns about donanemab, which may get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in the coming months. A regulatory green light would put donanemab up against Biogen Inc.
\n BIIB,
\n -0.35%<\/bg-quote>
\n and Eisai Co. Ltd.\u2019s
\n ESALF,
\n +0.09%<\/bg-quote>
\n Leqembi, which hit the market earlier this year and has also been found to slow Alzheimer\u2019s progression. But some geriatricians are tepid on both drugs, saying it\u2019s not clear that their disease-slowing benefits are enough to outweigh their significant costs and risks\u2013including potential brain swelling or bleeding.\u00a0<\/p>\nSkovronsky said that donanemab\u2019s disease-slowing effect \u201cis really quite significant.\u201d Nearly half the patients treated with donanemab in a clinical trial, for example, had not lost any cognition a year later, he said. For those patients to have a full year without any decline to spend with their families, he said, is \u201chugely impactful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s not debatable is the impact\u2013on wallets as well as waistlines\u2013of the new class of drugs widely used for weight loss, including Lilly\u2019s Mounjaro and Novo Nordisk\u2019s
\n NVO,
\n +2.96%<\/bg-quote>
\n Wegovy and Ozempic. Mounjaro is approved for treatment of type 2 diabetes and is currently under review at the FDA for obesity.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe popularity and effectiveness of these drugs, along with their costs, have raised questions about whether and how Medicare and employers should cover the treatments\u2013and whether patients will be able to stay on the injectable medicines long term. Some analysts are looking to obesity pills, now in development at Lilly, Pfizer, and other companies, to make this class of medicines more accessible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will have the same efficacy as some of the best injectables out there,\u201d Skovronsky said of Lilly\u2019s experimental weight-loss pill orforglipron. With 1 billion people globally likely to benefit from the drugs, \u201cit\u2019s sort of inconceivable to imagine addressing the global burden of obesity with a once-a-week injectable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not something the world\u2019s supply chains can handle, so we\u2019re definitely going to need pills\u201d to fight the obesity epidemic.<\/p>\n
As the new class of weight-loss treatments, generally categorized as GLP-1 drugs, make waves in the market, Skovronsky said that 10 years down the road, the drugs having a similar impact on the industry and patients will probably be \u201cthings that no one is working on today.\u201d He cites medications for chronic pain, an area that Lilly is now researching but where the industry has made few advances in recent decades. Now, \u201cthe science is breaking open,\u201d he said, \u201cand maybe that will be a big area in the future.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the company\u2019s stock up more than 50% this year, are there any Lilly innovations that investors don\u2019t fully appreciate? Skovronsky has a long list, including the company\u2019s work in ulcerative colitis and Crohn\u2019s disease, atopic dermatitis, and cancer. Lilly earlier this year launched Jaypirca for treatment of mantle cell lymphoma, and \u201cI think that\u2019s just the beginning,\u201d Skovronsky said. \u201cWe\u2019re growing this into other types of blood cancer, and this could be a really profound medicine for many patients.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if Lilly didn\u2019t have our obesity drugs or our Alzheimer\u2019s drugs,\u201d he adds, \u201cwe\u2019d still have one of the most exciting and fastest growing pipelines in the industry.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could become the GLP-1 drugs of the future.\u00a0 If he\u2019s right, Eli Lilly & Co.\u2019s LLY, +4.82% remarkable winning streak won\u2019t fizzle any time soon. As Lilly\u2019s chief scientific and medical officer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-investing"},"yoast_head":"\n
Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prosfunds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1699332497_social.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"News Room\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"News Room\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"News Room\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/bab8f1b00ccebe43e39ff640793108e6\"},\"headline\":\"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\"},\"wordCount\":1113,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Investing\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\",\"name\":\"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/\",\"name\":\"Funding Factories\",\"description\":\"Latest Finance News and Updates\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Funding Factories\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/ff-dark-logo-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/ff-dark-logo-1.png\",\"width\":780,\"height\":140,\"caption\":\"Funding Factories\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/bab8f1b00ccebe43e39ff640793108e6\",\"name\":\"News Room\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/avatar_user_1_1693518183-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/avatar_user_1_1693518183-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"News Room\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds","description":"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds","og_description":"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could","og_url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375","og_site_name":"Prosfunds","article_published_time":"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1699332497_social.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"News Room","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"News Room","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375"},"author":{"name":"News Room","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/bab8f1b00ccebe43e39ff640793108e6"},"headline":"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0","datePublished":"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375"},"wordCount":1113,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Investing"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375","url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375","name":"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0 | Prosfunds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-07T04:48:16+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T04:48:18+00:00","description":"Dr. Daniel Skovronsky believes a big leap in Alzheimer\u2019s disease treatment may be just around the corner\u2013and that an overlooked class of medicines could","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=43375#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Eli Lilly chief scientific officer \u2018extremely optimistic\u2019 that major new Alzheimer\u2019s breakthrough is coming\u00a0"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/","name":"Funding Factories","description":"Latest Finance News and Updates","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#organization","name":"Funding Factories","url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/ff-dark-logo-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/ff-dark-logo-1.png","width":780,"height":140,"caption":"Funding Factories"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/bab8f1b00ccebe43e39ff640793108e6","name":"News Room","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/avatar_user_1_1693518183-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/avatar_user_1_1693518183-96x96.png","caption":"News Room"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/prosfunds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43377,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43375\/revisions\/43377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}