New Delhi: An experimental anti-obesity daily pill helped people lose about five percent of their body weight in 12 weeks at the highest dose tested, according to early trial results released Monday by US biotech company Corbus Pharmaceuticals.
The drug, CRB-913, showed lower rates of some stomach-related side effects than those reported for oral GLP-1 (Glucagon-like Peptide) drugs, the company said.
The drug, CRB-913, works differently from GLP-1 medicines. While GLP-1 drugs reduce hunger by mimicking a natural hormone, CRB-913 targets a different receptor in the body that regulates appetite.
GLP-1 drugs have become widely used medicines for obesity in recent years because of substantial weight loss seen in clinical trials. Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy and Ozempic, and Eli Lilly, which makes Zepbound and Mounjaro, are the two major players in the market.
The Corbus CANYON-1 trial involved 254 adults with obesity but no diabetes across 15 US sites. Participants received a placebo or daily CRB-913 at 20 mg, 40 mg or 60 mg for 12 weeks.
At 60 mg, participants lost 5 percent more weight than those on placebo. The 20 mg and 40 mg groups lost 2.8 percent and 3.3 percent more, respectively.
Among those on 60 mg who completed treatment, 44.4 percent lost at least five percent of their starting weight, while 6.7 percent lost more than 7.5 percent. The biggest individual weight loss was 13.4 percent. Corbus said people were still losing weight at 12 weeks, with no sign that the effect had stopped.
“From a clinical practice perspective, a substantial number of patients with obesity either cannot tolerate GLP-1 receptor agonists or do not achieve an adequate therapeutic response,” said Dr Harold Bays, an investigator in the trial and clinical associate professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in the US.
He added that the encouraging part was that weight loss had not yet levelled off by the end of the 12-week treatment period, and that the drug appeared to avoid the depressive effects associated with earlier cannabinoid drugs that acted on CB1 receptors in the brain.
“These findings support the potential emergence of the first agent in a new class of obesity medications, offering a novel mechanism of action to help treat the global epidemic of obesity,” he said.
How CRB-913 differs from GLP-1
GLP-1 medicines mimic a hormone released after eating. They reduce hunger, increase the feeling of fullness and slow the movement of food through the stomach.
CRB-913 works differently. It targets CB1 receptors, which are involved in hunger and food intake. Corbus calls it a CB1 inverse agonist, meaning it reduces the activity of these receptors.
Corbus reported markedly lower rates of vomiting, nausea and constipation than those published for oral GLP-1 drugs, though rates of diarrhoea were higher.
The company cautioned that these were comparisons across separate trials rather than head-to-head studies, and that the published GLP-1 data came from studies lasting far longer than CANYON-1’s 12 weeks of treatment.
The CB1 pathway has been studied for obesity before, but earlier drugs ran into safety problems because they also affected the brain.
Sanofi’s rimonabant, approved in the European Union in 2006, was withdrawn two years later after concerns over psychiatric side effects.
Novo Nordisk also abandoned development of its CB1 drug monlunabant after disappointing trial results.
CRB-913 has been designed to have minimal penetration into the brain, which Corbus says could help avoid these problems.
Dr Anoop Misra, an endocrinologist and chairman of the Fortis C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, Metabolic Diseases and Endocrinology, in New Delhi called CRB-913 “an interesting and potentially promising new oral approach to obesity treatment”.
But he cautioned that the data come from a small, short Phase 1b trial with only 12 weeks of treatment. He said that if confirmed in larger studies, lower rates of nausea and vomiting could matter because stomach-related side effects are a common reason people stop obesity medicines.
“For now, however, these results should be considered promising early evidence, rather than practice-changing data,” he told ThePrint.
The opportunity for obesity drugs is growing rapidly. In India, 30.7 percent of women aged 15-49 and 27.3 percent of men aged 15-54 are overweight or obese, according to the latest National Family Health Survey, NFHS-6 (2023-24).
The country’s GLP-1 market reached Rs 2,333 crore in the 12 months to August 2026, according to Pharmarack data.
Globally, Goldman Sachs estimates in its latest forecast that obesity-drug sales could reach $114 billion by 2030. This has attracted several drugmakers, with about a dozen oral obesity drugs in development.
Corbus plans to present detailed CANYON-1 results at ObesityWeek 2026 in November and expects to begin a Phase 2 trial in the first half of 2027. It is also studying whether CRB-913 could be combined with GLP-1 treatment.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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