Dive Brief:
- The FDA has approved Eli Lilly's type 2 diabetes injectable, Trulicity (dulaglutide).
- The diabetes drug market is extremely crowded -- but Trulicity comes with the advantage of being a once-weekly treatment that has proven to be as effective as Novo Nordisk's once-daily Victoza, a $2 billion per year blockbuster that Lilly will be certain to compared Trulicity to in its marketing campaign.
- Analysts estimate that Trulicity sales may range anywhere from $700 million to $1.3 billion in 2020 .
Dive Insight:
This approval is the best news Lilly has gotten in a while. Trulicity has proven its mettle in clinical settings time and time again, beating out competitors ranging from AZ's Byetta to Merck's Januvia in controlling blood glucose and weight.
Now, Lilly's challenge is to take on Victoza, the most popular GLP-1 therapy on the market. Novo CEO Lars Sorensen even told FierceBiotech that he expects the product to be competitive (while still praising Victoza's superior glucose and weight control). Lilly will be sure to play up the convenience aspect of its once-weekly injectable.