Here's what will happen if you stopped taking Eli Lilly's weight-loss drug

Eli Lilly & Co (NYSE: LLY) is down nearly 4.0% today after a study indicated that weight-loss from Zepbound tends to reverse once the treatment is stopped.

Patients regain weight if they stop taking Zepbound

Zepbound helped patients lose close to 21% of their weight on average in about 36 weeks.

But once they were put on a placebo, they regained significant weight (14%) in one year, as per the research published in Journal of the American Medical Association.

The news arrives more than a month after the pharmaceutical behemoth reported market-beating financial results for its third quarter on solid demand for Mounjaro.

Mounjaro is basically the same drug as Zepbound but the two are approved for distinct medical conditions. Former is primarily for diabetes while latter is for weight loss.

Zepbound can reduce more weight if continued

It is worth mentioning here that the said research also established Zepbound as effective for patients in reducing another 5.5% of their weight if the treatment is continued beyond 36 weeks.

The peer-reviewed study saw participation from 670 adults who were overweight but not diabetic.

Note that the researchers did not factor inn the impact of behavioural therapy in this study. They also did not adjust doses following randomization. These were acknowledged as limitations of their research.

In 2022, a study of Semaglutide (anti-obesity drug of Novo Nordisk) also signaled that patients regained about 66% of their lost weight in a year after stopping treatment. Shares of the Danish drugmaker are also slightly weighed on Monday.