💉The next big name in obesity is EloraTZP, Elizabeth Cairns wrote from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting in Milan. Data unveiled on Wednesday show that Lilly’s amylin-incretin combination delivered weight loss of up to 23.3% at about 11 months in patients with both obesity and type 2 diabetes. This is the best-ever data seen in this population, beating the previous record-holder, Lilly’s own retatrutide.

Safety, however, might be a worry. More than a quarter of patients on the combination’s highest dose stopped their treatment early because of side effects. Lilly is set to start Phase 3 trials by the end of the year, and the drugmaker says dosing tweaks can help alleviate these concerns. “Phase 2 is really not the right place to draw conclusions about tolerability,” said Kenneth Custer, president of Lilly’s cardiometabolic health business.

Lilly’s two-shot combination consists of the investigational amylin eloralintide and the approved GLP-1/GIP medicine Zepbound. As usual with incretins, EloraTZP’s side effects were gastrointestinal and mostly happened during dose escalation. The rates of discontinuations due to side effects were between 10.8% and 27.0% with the combination and 16.7% with placebo. Elizabeth has more details here.

💵The Sanofi-Regeneron alliance has been wildly fruitful, as they co-developed one of the biggest blockbuster drugs in Dupixent. Now, with Dupixent approaching its 2031 patent cliff, the companies are returning to that well in an expansion of their original deal. The French pharma will pay $1 billion upfront to expand its antibody collaboration with Regeneron. There’s also up to an additional $7 billion tied to development, regulatory and commercial milestones.

For Sanofi, the agreement comes in a pivotal year. New CEO Belén Garijo has been tasked with rebuilding the company’s pipeline after a number of bets in immunology under former leader Paul Hudson did not work out. Jefferies analysts wrote in a Thursday note that Sanofi’s move “should be seen as a sign of clear progress” under Garijo, though they said that M&A would still be important for the company to address the Dupixent patent cliff.

Regeneron, meanwhile, has been facing the usual questions about upcoming blockbuster expiries, and executives said the partnership between the two drugmakers can continue its success. They will work together on four next-gen antibodies originated by Regeneron. The first three candidates target IL-4 receptor α, IL-13, and IL-4, and the fourth hits both IL-4 and IL-13. Dupixent inhibits both IL-4 and IL-13.

🤖Last week, Anthropic said its AI system made its first scientific discovery. Claude agents had discovered a new enzyme system, the AI giant said, publicizing the findings in a blog post and a 40-page report. But it did not come without controversy: Many observers saw the announcement as premature and overhyped. Additionally, Mario Rodríguez Mestre, a University of Copenhagen computational biologist, claimed he had already made a similar discovery.

So this week, our AI expert Andrew Dunn chatted with Anthropic’s life sciences team. Anthropic’s head of life sciences, Eric Kauderer-Abrams, explicitly rejected the possibility that the company trained Claude on Mestre’s research. “I’m absolutely certain that that did not happen,” Kauderer-Abrams said. You can read more about it in a Q&A that Andrew conducted with Kauderer-Abrams and other Anthropic researchers here.

🤝Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has been chosen as PhRMA’s next president and CEO, the group said Tuesday. Endpoints first reported in August that Cantor was among a list of at least four Republicans who had been considered for the role. He replaces outgoing CEO Steve Ubl, who will stay on as a strategic advisor until Jan. 15, 2027.

Since leaving Congress in 2014 after a shocking primary upset, Cantor has worked as vice chairman and managing director at the investment bank Moelis & Company.  PhRMA board chairman and Merck CEO Rob Davis said Cantor is “well-respected among policy leaders in Washington and around the world, with a long track record of working effectively across the political spectrum to achieve important outcomes that have a lasting impact.” You can read more here from Max Bayer.