Weight loss drugs come at a cost, and it is not the MRP you read on the packaging. There are practical complications that come into play after you get them—refrigeration, storage cost and their requirement to get injected in the body from time to time. All this imposes a significant obstacle to their accessibility and availability. But now, pharma firms have a solution to this, which is their availability in the form of pills. But How Feasible Are The Pills?Many pharmaceutical firms have struggled to package GLP-1 agonists and other peptide-based drugs in pill form because peptides, chain of amino acids, that are building blocks of protein are fragile. Therefore, a drug made of that can get into quickly and dissolve before it has a chance to act. Novo Nordisk's Rybelsus, which is FDA approved for managing Type 2 Diabetes, meets the requirements but requires specific dietary instructions and doesn't seem to be as effective for weight loss as the injectables.Eli Lilly Announces Oral Diabetes Pills Its rival firm, Eli Lilly, last week, announced its weight loss pill Orforglipron, could prove to be a breakthrough in a class of drugs called GLP-1 drug agonists, which have become popular for weight loss and treating diabetes. The solution that Eli Lilly found was to ditch peptides and find an incredibly small molecule to mimic them, which can bind to the same "pocket" on the GLP-1 receptor that the peptides would target. Because the molecule is so small, it's absorbed into the stomach wall before it can be degraded.The announcement was followed by a clinical trial, which involved over 550 people with type 2 diabetes who had inadequate glycemic control through diet and exercise alone. Orforglipron—at its highest dose—reduced body weight by an average of 16 pounds (7.9%) in their case. The participants continued to lose weight through the end of the 40-week trial. The study also met its primary goal: lowering A1C levels more effectively than a placebo. Participants saw average reductions of 1.3% to 1.6% from a baseline of 8%.The results of the trial put orforglipron roughly on par with Ozempic and Mounjaro, though some analysts were expecting a blood sugar level reduction up to 2.1 per cent, which is what Ozempic accomplished in trials. Is Orforglipron The Future?Some are optimistic that the small molecule approach behind developing orforglipron will be a game changer. "In the next 4 or 5 years, this field will mature and more patients ultimately should be able to get these medicines," Kyle Sloop, a molecular biologist at Lilly Research Laboratories, told Science."Having new oral agents that lower glucose but also meaningfully lower weight well beyond levels seen with most existing diabetes therapies is critical to future type 2 diabetes care," echoed Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, in a statement. "Of course, one caveat is that we do not know the effects of this newer therapy on cardiovascular outcomes but this will be forthcoming in future trials."