Structure Therapeutics CEO on Obesity Pill and More
Raymond Stevens, CEO of Structure Therapeutics Inc., during an interview with Bloomberg Television at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, January 12, 2026.
Benjamin Fanjoy | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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After introducing the first ever GLP-1 weight loss pill by Novo Nordisk This month, obesity took center stage at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, attended by thousands of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, investors, consultants and analysts.
I sat down with Ray Stevens, CEO of Obesity Market Hopeful Structural therapeuticsabout the biotech company’s future path and its expectations for the future of the booming GLP-1 sector.
It’s a big year for Structure as the company’s daily oral GLP-1 is expected to enter phase three trials. Shares of Structure rose more than 100% on Dec. 9 after the company released midterm data showing its pill aleniglipron helped patients with obesity lose more than 11% of their weight after 36 weeks, adjusted for placebo.
Here are some highlights from my interview with Stevens at the conference.
What will determine the success of your company this year?
Stevens said 2026 is all about preparing for phase 3 trials of aleniglipron. He said he believes Novo Nordisk’s now-approved pill and an upcoming oral rival drug from Eli Lilly will have good launches and that Structure’s pill will be “next” to market.
“I think we’re going to have a really good tailwind with a potentially best-in-class drug,” he told CNBC.
Stevens said he was proud of data on the drug released in December that touted its “really good efficacy” and tolerability, or data on how well patients tolerated the treatment. In the phase 2 trial, there were no withdrawals due to side effects in patients who started treatment at a low dose of 2.5 milligrams.
What makes your pill competitive in the market?
Sheldon Cooper | Light rocket | Getty Images
Stevens said there are four reasons.
Firstly, effectiveness. The phase 2 trial in December showed that a higher dose of 240 milligrams helped patients lose up to 15.3% of their weight after 36 weeks, adjusted for placebo.
Stevens said other competitors report such weight loss after a longer period of time, such as 60 to 72 weeks.
Safety is another factor, he added. For example, Structure observed no drug-related liver damage in all studies of the pill – a problem that has troubled other experimental oral treatments for obesity.
Stevens said the third reason was the relatively low cost of manufacturing the pill, which is a small-molecule drug.
“We have the ability to scale to a very large scale and therefore can easily serve the entire U.S. market,” he said.
The fourth factor, he said, was that Structure’s pill was combinable.
The company released data showing that it can combine its oral GLP-1 with its other drug, which targets the gut hormone amylin, and achieve “truly synergistic effects,” Stevens said. He added that oral administration of GLP-1 can be combined with other treatments, such as PCSK9 inhibitors or drugs that dramatically lower “bad” LDL cholesterol.
“Alenigliprone combines very well with other drugs, so we’re excited about it,” Stevens said.
What role do you think pills will play in this area?
Oral medications could expand the market, Stevens said. He noted that 100 million people in the U.S. need obesity treatment, but only about 5 million are receiving the existing injections.
The “real growth” and acceptance of the pills will come from primary care physicians, who write most prescriptions for Americans, Stevens said.
These doctors prefer pills because of their flexibility, he added.
Stevens said he has seen cases where patients who received the injections experienced side effects and were “really miserable for a week and never went near that needle again.” But taking pills every day can make it easier to take the medication.
For example, he said that on a day when a patient has to attend an important meeting, he or she might halve the pill to mitigate side effects.
What awaits the future of the obesity medication market?
Stevens said he believes combinations “will be the next phase of the field.”
“I feel like the winners of monotherapy treatments are now emerging,” he said. But Stevens said the patient population is segmented by the other health conditions a person has in addition to obesity, such as fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.
Combinations can be used here that help treat a disease better than one product alone.
Looking further into the future, Stevens hopes access and affordability will no longer be an issue in this area. The market has made progress over the past year. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are slashing cash prices for their injections and upcoming pills, while Medicare coverage for obesity drugs begins later this year.
Stevens said he was “okay with the cost reduction because for me it’s always been about volume and trying to meet a very large unmet need worldwide.”
He said he also hopes there will be more treatment options available to patients in the future, whether it’s a once-a-month injection or different types of pills.
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