By Elaine ChenJune 8, 2026
Chen, a national biotech reporter, is the co-author of The Readout, a newsletter about the business, science, and politics of biotech.
Elaine’s stories explore the boom in new obesity treatments, new drug payment models, the ways companies are affected by FDA changes, and the emerging psychedelics drug sector. She co-writes The Readout newsletter, and co-hosts STAT’s weekly biotech podcast, The Readout Loud. You can reach Elaine on Signal at elaineywchen.70.AstraZeneca’s investigational GLP-1 pill showed promise in mid-stage obesity and diabetes studies, but it may still be too early to determine how it stacks up against oral treatments already on the market.
In one Phase 2 trial of people with obesity, called VISTA, those on the highest dose of the drug, called elecoglipron, lost 11.2% of their weight after 36 weeks, when looking at all patients regardless of discontinuations, according to data presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association and published in the Lancet. (Eli Lilly’s pill Foundayo led to the same rate of weight loss in a Phase 3 study that lasted twice as long, but it’s hard to compare across trials in different phases.)
