Rita Kalyani, MD, chief scientific and medical officer at the American Diabetes Association, discusses the latest diabetes and obesity research, including a novel oral GLP-1 drug, a combined semaglutide-amylin analogue injection, data from China on high-dose mazdutide, and more.<br><br>Related Content:<br>A New GLP-1 Pill for Diabetes, Semaglutide With Amylin, Data From China, and More From ADA 2026

New GLP-1 Drug Options and More Highlights From the ADA's 2026 Scientific Sessions

JAMA Medical News

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**Podcast:** JAMA Medical News

## Transcript

From the JAMA Network, this is the JAMA Medical News Podcast. Discussing timely topics in clinical medicine, biomedical sciences, public health, and health policy, featured in the Medical News section of JAMA. Today we're bringing you clinical updates from the American Diabetes Association's annual scientific sessions, which recently wrapped up in New Orleans. I'm Jennifer Abasi for JAMA Medical News. My guest today is Dr. Rita Kalyani.

Dr. Kalyani is the ADA's Chief Scientific and Medical Officer and a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Kalyani, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. So you're going to share with us some of the important research on diabetes and obesity care from the conference. This year's program was packed with new research on incretin-based therapies. So let's start there.

I have to say I had a really hard time narrowing down the studies we're going to talk about because there are so many interesting things happening in this space. I thought we'd begin with ritatratide. This is an investigational triple agonist, so three hormones in one injection. It's a glucagon-like peptide 1, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, and a glucagon receptor agonist.

So data from two phase 3 studies were presented at the meeting, one in people with type 2 diabetes and the other in people with obesity. What did we learn about this novel drug? We learned a lot about this novel drug. And as you mentioned, it is a triple hormone receptor agonist and really an exciting novel mechanism of lowering blood glucose and treating diabetes.

And what we learned from the trial, the phase 3, transcend type 2 diabetes 1 trial, adults with recent onset type 2 diabetes who were not yet a glycemic target. We had an A1c between 7% to 9.5% despite diet and exercise alone. Over 40 weeks, we saw benefits both in glycemic control as reflected in significant improvements in A1c and substantial weight reduction.

In those who received the medication, ritatratide, participants experienced up to a 2% reduction in A1c and a 16.8% reduction, average loss of 36.6 pounds in body weight. To put those numbers in context, 2% is what we would consider high glycemic efficacy for this agent.

And 16.8% weight loss is really in the range of one of the highest that we see in terms of reduction in body weight. So really at the very upper end of what we see currently of available therapies, both in glycemic reduction and in body weight reduction. Interestingly, ritatratide also showed improvements across cardiovascular risk factors. And we know that people with diabetes are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

And having this additional benefit, including in LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure, also suggests that this agent has benefits in improving cardiovascular risk profile. And promisingly, adverse events were low, similar to those of ot...

New GLP-1 Drug Options and More Highlights From the ADA's 2026 Scientific Sessions

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New GLP-1 Drug Options and More Highlights From the ADA's 2026 Scientific Sessions

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.