Combining tirzepatide with eloralintide resulted in greater weight loss, according to findings presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan, Italy, on 30 September. The study compared weekly injections of 15-milligram tirzepatide against varying doses of eloralintide combined with 15-milligram tirzepatide weekly injections.
Participants receiving only 15-milligram tirzepatide lost an average of 15.6 kilograms, equating to 14.8 per cent of their body weight. Conversely, the placebo group experienced an average weight loss of 3 per cent of body weight.
The trial included 367 individuals from the US and Argentina who either had obesity or were overweight and all possessed type 2 diabetes. Regarding blood sugar, the tirzepatide group showed an average reduction of 2.4 per cent.
The high-dose EloraTZP group achieved a 2.9 per cent reduction in blood sugar levels. Lora Heisler at the University of Aberdeen, UK, stated, “Adding a drug acting like amylin [alongside tirzepatide] effectively brings a third appetite-regulating pathway into play, which may explain why the combination appears to deliver substantially greater weight loss”.
Mild to moderate side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea, appeared more frequently in the EloraTZP groups compared to those on tirzepatide alone or the placebo. A notable complication was the dropout rate, with up to 27 per cent of those in the EloraTZP groups withdrawing from the trial.
Developers plan to launch a larger trial for EloraTZP, administered as a single weekly injection, before the end of this year. The US Food and Drug Administration could grant approval for the EloraTZP approach for broader use within the next few years.
