With Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound among the top 10 best-selling drugs in 2025, it’s no surprise that obesity treatments remain some of pharma’s most exciting pipeline candidates right now.
Eli Lilly’s triple-agonist retatrutide delivered 28.3% average weight loss at 80 weeks in phase 3, while Novo Nordisk’s CagriSema missed the primary endpoint in a head-to-head trial against Lilly’s tirzepatide earlier this year.
Despite the headlines these candidates are generating, obesity isn’t the only pipeline worth watching. Here are three other potential blockbusters in the making.
A “jaw-dropping” possibility for pancreatic cancer: Revolution Medicines’ daraxonrasib
It’s not every day that clinical trial results get a standing ovation when they’re presented. But that’s what happened at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting when oncologists saw the data on Revolution Medicines’ pancreatic cancer drug daraxonrasib. With industry experts calling its clinical results “jaw-dropping” and “astonishing,” daraxonrasib has the potential to revolutionize treatment for one of the deadliest cancers.
The drug, which is an investigational oral, once-daily treatment for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, nearly doubled survival time and improved progression-free survival compared to chemotherapy and did it with fewer serious side effects. Plus, its oral delivery could make treatment more convenient for patients than IV chemotherapy.
Should daraxonrasib win approval, it not only has a chance to become a new standard of care, but it could reach $4.3 billion in annual sales by 2032 by some estimates.
Daraxonrasib was among the drugs tapped for the FDA Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher pilot program. It was also previously granted breakthrough therapy and orphan drug designations. The agency accepted Revolution’s NDA for daraxonrasib in July.
A potentially safer multiple myeloma CAR T-cell therapy: Gilead’s anito-cel
Despite the promise of multiple myeloma CAR T-cell therapies, their potential side effects have proven to be significant hurdles for patients.
Enter anito-cel, a BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy that could compete directly with Johnson & Johnson’s blockbuster Carvykti and potentially offer a safety edge.
Gilead saw so much promise in anito-cel that it bought Arcellx, in a deal valued up to $7.8 billion. It also snagged total control of the drug, which Arcellx was originally developing in partnership with Gilead’s Kite Pharma.
Data announced in December showed a 96% overall response rate, 74% stringent complete response/complete response, and 95% minimal residual disease negativity, along with a “predictable and manageable” safety profile.
Its scheduled PDUFA date is December 23.
A next-generation Alzheimer’s treatment: Lilly’s remternetug
Lilly scored a win in 2024 when the FDA approved its anti-amyloid Alzheimer’s treatment, Kisunla.
Now, the company’s follow-on drug, remternetug, could become a next-generation Alzheimer’s treatment that could address some of Kisunla’s shortcomings by offering subcutaneous injection instead of IV infusion. While early data suggested that remternetug may clear amyloid plaques rapidly, final phase 3 results have not yet been reported.
Lilly is also studying whether remternetug can prevent Alzheimer’s disease in people with rare inherited Alzheimer’s mutations. After research with a different anti-amyloid drug, gantenerumab, showed that in a 22-person longest-treated subgroup, treatment cut the risk of developing symptoms from essentially 100% to about 50%, the remternetug trial is investigating the drug in participants as young as 18.
