The modern version of Pfizer has many faces: a pandemic success story, an oncology powerhouse, and now an aspiring player in weight-loss drugs. It may sound like a stretch, but Pfizer's chief executive believes the company can replicate the playbook from one of its most iconic blockbusters.
"The market has proven very resilient, very big," CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview with Barron's. "You can see what has happened with Eli Lilly's stock because they are doing well with GLP-1s, and there's a reason for that."
Now, Pfizer is launching its own challenge to market leaders Lilly and Novo Nordisk with berobenatide, a candidate gained through the $10 billion acquisition of Metsera in late 2025. Pfizer plans to debut a weekly formulation in 2028, followed by a monthly injection.
While late to an effective duopoly, Bourla believes Pfizer can still make up for lost ground.
"Commercial execution is our strength," he said. "We showed the world what it means to do that with Viagra."
Today, Viagra is widely available as generic sildenafil. Pfizer hasn't held exclusive rights to the drug for years. But in its early days, "it had the same characteristics as obesity medications, where people were willing to pay out-of-pocket for it," Bourla explained.
In a first for Big Pharma, Pfizer pledged in 2013 to begin selling Viagra directly to patients on its website. With the drug generating $2 billion globally in 2012 alone, the initiative was designed to protect one of Pfizer's most lucrative franchises from a surge in counterfeit sales by unlicensed online pharmacies.
"We learned how to do e-commerce, and we learned how to fight compounding and counterfeit products," Bourla said. "We are the company that taught the world how we do these things. In this consumer-driven market, Pfizer has enormous capability."
GLP-1 medications aren't new territory for Pfizer. Ahead of the turn of the decade, the drugmaker made its first foray into the space with lotiglipron, a once-daily pill for weight management and Type 2 diabetes. That effort was halted in 2023 after researchers detected elevated liver enzymes in some patients in mid-stage trials.
While Pfizer vowed at the time to advance a second asset, danuglipron, the drug soon faced its own hurdles. In December of that year, Pfizer discontinued a study of a twice-daily version following disappointing trial results in which there were too many side effects.
The drugmaker subsequently moved forward with a once-daily version of danuglipron, though that program was scrapped entirely in 2025 after a patient experienced a potentially drug-induced liver injury. The injury resolved after the patient stopped taking danuglipron, Pfizer said, while declining to provide additional details.
The company's renewed push into the weight-loss drug market was fueled by the acquisition of Metsera, a New York-based biotech, through which Lilly gained not just berobenatide, but an ultra-long-acting amylin receptor agonist called MET-233i. Analysts consider this emerging drug class the natural successor to GLP-1s, with competitors like Lilly and Novo already advancing their own candidates.
"Pfizer has a pipeline of assets that are very different from Lilly's assets," Bourla said. That differentiation centers largely on dosing regimens: Should Pfizer's berobenatide succeed as a once-monthly option, that would give it an edge over other treatments in terms of convenience. Lilly's Foundayo is a daily pill, while its Zepbound injection and next-generation candidate retatrutide are designed for weekly self-administration.
While MET-233i isn't as far along in development, berobenatide is progressing through 10 late-stage trials for chronic weight management and related comorbidities. Ultimately, Pfizer believes the drug could outperform Novo's semaglutide and compete directly with Lilly's tirzepatide.
Wall Street still needs convincing. Many analysts remain sidelined on the stock, waiting for a growth inflection that management itself doesn't expect until 2029. But with major clinical and commercial tests still ahead, it is far too early to count Pfizer out.
Comments