Lilly starts exploring gene therapy for obesity and type 2 diabetes

Eli Lilly has entered a research collaboration with Remedium Bio, a Boston-based genetic medicine company, to explore gene therapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes ^[1]. The deal, announced September 8, 2025, pairs Lilly's experience in metabolic disease drugs with Remedium's gene delivery platform, called Prometheus, in an early attempt to find something that could replace the weekly or daily injections used today ^[1].

Under the agreement, Remedium will receive an upfront payment, an equity investment from Lilly, and potential milestone payments tied to development and commercialization progress, plus royalties on any resulting product sold worldwide ^[1]. Remedium is based in Lilly Gateway Labs in Boston, part of a Lilly program called Catalyze360 that gives startups access to funding, lab space, and drug development resources ^[1].

The idea behind Prometheus is different from how current GLP-1 drugs work. Instead of injecting a manufactured protein every week, as with semaglutide or tirzepatide, the platform is designed to deliver a gene that tells the body to make its own therapeutic protein, with a single injection meant to work for multiple years ^[1]. Remedium also says the dose can be adjusted after treatment, which would address a common worry with gene therapy: once it is given, there is normally no way to turn it down or off ^[1]. Frank Luppino, Remedium's CEO, called the deal validation that the platform could reach "one of the world's largest therapeutic markets" ^[1].

This is not the only such move by Lilly. A separate STAT News report on the same day covered a company called Caspian, which launched with Lilly's backing to pursue a disease-modifying approach to diabetes, suggesting Lilly is placing more than one bet on treatments meant to go beyond incretin drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide ^[2]. Details of Lilly's financial stake in that separate effort were not available in the sources reviewed for this article.

Why it matters for patients

Nothing about this collaboration changes how Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, or other GLP-1 drugs are prescribed or used today. The Remedium deal is an early-stage research collaboration, not a clinical trial in people and not a product with a known timeline ^[1]. The press release does not name a lead drug candidate, a target date for human testing, or projected pricing ^[1].

Still, the collaboration signals something worth understanding: the companies making today's injectable weight-loss and diabetes drugs are also researching ways to replace them entirely. If gene therapy for obesity or type 2 diabetes ever reached patients, it could mean a single treatment instead of a lifetime of weekly injections. Remedium describes its platform as a way to deliver treatment