Novo and Lilly Explore Different Paths Toward the Horizon of Obesity Medicine

Original posted at obesity.news/ on Aug 30, 2025

A couple of weeks ago I told you we were standing at the edge of a renaissance in obesity medicine. Remember that? When I walked through Lilly’s moves into gene editing and molecular gates, the plan to rewrite obesity at its source?

Novo just made their own move (cue the record scratch).

This week Novo Nordisk announced a partnership with Replicate Bioscience on self replicating RNA, srRNA. Ths deal is worth up to $550M. A big number to be sure, but the concept is even bigger. Turning your own cells into the primary drug factory.

Think about it. Instead of a weekly pen (we may need to change our name) that fades in days, srRNA copies itself inside your cells. It keeps producing therapeutic proteins longer, stronger, and maybe even multiple at once. Less dosing. Less supply drama. Maybe fewer side effects.

Lilly is chasing permanence with gene editing. Novo is chasing persistence with self replicating RNA. Two very different bets with one shared goal: treating obesity like chronic and relapsing disease that it is.

The question is pretty simple it it’s core, obesity is rooted in biology, so what happens when we actually learn to rewrite that biology? What happens when the biggest drugmakers on earth are taking two different tracks to help get us there? Then obesity begins to truly be treated for the multi-factoral disease that it is.

This is the future of obesity medicine, and On The Pen is who you can trust to guide you there. While the headlines still obsess over celebrity weight loss and Ozempic face, we are already tracking the real story, the science, the money, the race that will reshape treatment forever.

The renaissance is not coming. It is already here.

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