US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is stockpiling its oral GLP-1 drug orforglipron for obesity treatment while awaiting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As of December 31, the company had secured $1.5 billion in “advance purchase reserves.”
In doing so, Eli Lilly aims to avoid a shortage of orforglipron upon market launch, as happened with its injectable diabetes and obesity drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. Although Eli Lilly and its main competitor in the GLP-1 agonist field — Denmark’s Novo Nordisk — have fully resolved supply issues, the initial shortages contributed to the emergence of an entire industry producing such drugs, which has proven difficult to control.
In November, Eli Lilly received a priority review voucher from the regulator for orforglipron. This procedure, aimed at significantly speeding up the review of products that “address US healthcare priorities,” has already been criticized for its potential to facilitate corruption and undermine public trust in the FDA’s review standards.
Nevertheless, despite a promise to review the drug within one to two months, the target decision date for orforglipron has been moved to April 10th. If approved, orforglipron will immediately compete with the oral version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, sales of which began in the United States in January.
Meanwhile, analysts have recognized orforglipron as one of the most anticipated launches of 2026. According to forecasts from Evaluate, sales of Eli Lilly’s new drug will reach $11.8 billion by 2032, which, however, falls short of the projected figure for Novo Nordisk’s latest development, CagriSema.