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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei released a video around the company's IPO launch claiming AI could rapidly cure cancer, mental illness and other diseases. Eli Lilly's Chairman and CEO Dave Ricks publicly challenged these claims on X, offering a more measured assessment, and several medical researchers and academics criticized Amodei's statements as unrealistic given current data and clinical trial constraints.
On Thursday's CNBC Investing Club 'Morning Meeting,' Jim Cramer said indiscriminate selling following Alphabet's revenue miss and Microsoft's otherwise strong quarter had created buying opportunities in quality tech names. He also discussed Eli Lilly's record-high shares after a strong earnings beat driven by obesity-drug demand, and noted FedEx had raised its full-year earnings outlook despite a softer near-term forecast.
Eli Lilly announced in July plans to acquire psychedelic-medicine developer AtaiBeckley for up to $3.8 billion, targeting its lead drug BPL-003 for treatment-resistant depression. The deal follows AbbVie's $1.2 billion acquisition earlier in 2025 of Gilgamesh Pharmaceutical's short-acting psychedelic bretisilocin, signaling renewed big-pharma interest despite the FDA's 2023 rejection of an MDMA-based PTSD treatment.
Two clinical trials found that Eli Lilly's experimental obesity drug retatrutide significantly cut the number of apnea episodes experienced by participants compared with those given a placebo. Retatrutide is already being studied as a potent weight-loss treatment, and the apnea findings represent an additional effect observed during testing.
CBS News had a vial labeled retatrutide, bought at a Brooklyn bodega, tested by University of Iowa bioorganic chemist Jason Galpin, who found it contained phenylacetic acid rather than any peptide compound. A separate analysis by Carl Ross, the university's Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing development director, identified at least 13 bacterial colonies in the sample. A similar Wired investigation last month on bodega-bought peptides also found no actual peptides, only an unidentifiable chemical mixture.
At the ARDD conference at Harvard, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly presented preliminary findings suggesting their GLP-1 receptor agonists, including semaglutide, may slow molecular markers of aging. Novo's study of 10,052 participants found proteomic clock differences of about two to three years between drug and placebo groups, with up to a four-year gap on a clock measuring heart-related proteins.
The FDA has received at least two reports of deaths connected to unapproved, black-market versions of retatrutide, an experimental weight-loss drug still being developed by Eli Lilly and not yet approved for sale. CBS News reviewed documents describing one case involving a 41-year-old obese woman who died of cardiac arrest in July after obtaining the drug from an unverified source. The FDA has not confirmed the counterfeit drug was the definitive cause of death in either case, and an April Medpage Today report also described a non-fatal retatrutide overdose causing kidney injury and prolonged dehydration.
Eli Lilly presented early clinical data last month on brenipatide, a tirzepatide-related compound, for alcohol use disorder. Kariya Pharmaceuticals separately reported early results for KP405, a similar GLP-1 compound, in Parkinson's disease, while Baseline Therapeutics said it plans to begin a clinical trial of a GLP-1 compound for alcohol use disorder in early 2027.
New data from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly indicates that GLP-1 medications, the class that includes Ozempic, may slow biological aging as measured by molecular aging clocks. These clocks track chemical changes in cells believed to correlate with the pace of aging.
GLP-1 agonist drugs, approved for diabetes, kidney disease and obesity, are being used by a growing share of Americans, with a recent Gallup poll finding 11% currently take one for weight loss, up from 3% in 2024. Beyond common gastrointestinal issues, pancreatitis and gallstones, researchers and lawsuits are examining rarer possible effects including eye nerve damage, plus emerging questions about hair and nail changes.
Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk report that patients on their GLP-1 drugs show slower biological aging according to molecular 'aging clocks' measuring DNA changes and protein levels. Separately, MIT Technology Review named Energy Dome among its 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch for 2026, citing its system that stores renewable energy using compressed carbon dioxide rather than underground caverns.
Novo Nordisk tested blood from over 10,000 trial participants using proteomic clocks and found signs that its weight-loss drug slowed biological aging, including up to a 4-year shift in a clock measuring heart protein age. Eli Lilly ran a smaller study on tirzepatide using epigenetic clocks that track DNA changes, and also found molecular aging appeared to slow in patients taking the drug compared to placebo.