Eli Lilly’s highly anticipated weight loss drug retatrutide could also do wonders for people’s restless nights, according to recent research.
Last week, researchers published two trials of retatrutide examining its effects on people with obstructive sleep apnea. In both trials, the experimental drug significantly reduced symptoms compared to a placebo, they found. These findings are the latest to suggest that effective weight loss treatments like retatrutide and GLP-1-like drugs may also help manage sleep apnea.
More than one indication
Retatrutide is part of the next generation of obesity and diabetes drugs that harness certain types of hunger-related hormones like GLP-1. Retatrutide specifically mimics GLP-1, GIP and the glucagon hormone.
So far, large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies have shown that retatrutide may be the most powerful anti-obesity drug ever developed. Given these results, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies are almost certain to grant Eli Lilly approval for retatrutide next year. Obesity is also known to increase the risk of other health problems, including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Eli Lilly therefore decided to test whether retatrutide could also have additional benefits in this area.
The company has conducted two separate trials of retatrutide for the treatment of OSA, both part of larger Phase III trials of the drug. One trial involved people with type 2 diabetes and obesity who also had OSA, while the other involved people with OSA and obesity without diabetes. In total, these trials included approximately 700 participants.
Sleep apnea is defined by multiple, sustained episodes (10 seconds or more) of not breathing throughout the night, between 5 and 100 times per hour. OSA occurs when the muscles of the airway physically block a person’s breathing. Although snoring is a very common and visible sign of sleep apnea, it does not guarantee that you have it.
In both trials and with different doses of the drug, people taking retatrutide experienced on average fewer episodes of apnea (a temporary pause in breathing) and/or hypopneas (shallow breathing) during sleep than people taking a placebo. In one trial, more than half of retatrutide users also experienced remission of their OSA or saw their apnea become mild. At this point, many participants no longer needed to use a positive airway pressure machine, the gold standard treatment for OSA, the researchers noted.
The results of both trials were published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A new drug for sleep apnea?
Some people will likely still need other treatments to manage their sleep apnea, even if they were to take retatrutide and lose a lot of weight. Importantly, the drug’s benefits on apnea symptoms were smaller but still significant for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes. Being overweight is also not the only risk factor for OSA. It is therefore unlikely that retatrutide will have a significant effect on people with OSA who are neither obese nor overweight (about a quarter of cases).
Yet GLP-1 drugs are already used as adjunctive treatment for many people with both conditions. In late 2024, Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (which combines GLP-1 and GIP) won FDA approval for the treatment of OSA. And other pill-based treatments are also being developed for sleep apnea.
Although retatrutide will generate a lot of buzz because of its weight loss results, it may also one day soon bring relief to many of the 50 million Americans who also suffer from obstructive sleep apnea.
Gn Health
