TL;DR
The new weight-loss drugs melt fat, but they take muscle with it, and muscle is what keeps people strong, steady on their feet and independent as they age. A small family of drugs that block the body's built-in brake on muscle growth is trying to fix that, and the field is now converging on one practical design: take the weight-loss drug, and add a muscle-keeper on top. Biohaven has just moved its own candidate, taldefgrobep alfa, into that design, adding a group that gets it together with a GLP-1-based weight-loss drug. The change pushes its first results back a year, to the second half of 2027, and the company has reported no results yet. A rival's antibody has already halved the muscle people lose on Wegovy in a large trial, so the idea itself has human evidence behind it. Our odds that a muscle-sparing add-on to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is approved by 2030 are 40%. To see the full odds on each step and the timeline of breakthroughs that leads there, subscribe.
Below the line, for paid subscribers: The full story: where it stands, how we got here and what's dated next; and every source.