Pfizer has yet to announce its plans for the 44^th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. While the pharma giant is expected to make a presentation, it’s unclear what its focus will be on.

2025

By the beginning of 2025, it was clear the GLP-1 drugs were going to remain a major part of the industry. Pfizer used its presentation at the 43^rd JP Morgan Healthcre Conference to detail plans to push Danuglipron, a once-daily pill that the company hoped could compete with the more popular injectables on the market.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go the way Pfizer planned.

In April of this year, Pfizer announced that it was discontinuing development of the oral GLP-1.¹

In a statement, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer and president of research & development Chris Boshoff, MD, PhD, explained, “Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases including obesity remain important areas of unmet medical need, and we plan to continue applying our global capabilities to advance a pipeline of investigational treatments that have the potential to fill critical gaps in patient care, including continued development of our oral GIPR antagonist candidate and other earlier obesity programs. While we are disappointed to discontinue the development of danuglipron, we remain committed to evaluating and advancing promising programs in an effort to bring innovative new medicines to patients.”

This marked a major shift from the company’s previous expectations for the drug. In July, 2024, Pfizer announced recent advances made in development of the potential weight-loss medication.²

“Obesity is a key therapeutic area for Pfizer, and the company has a robust pipeline of three clinical and several pre-clinical candidates,” the company’s chief scientific officer and president of R&D Mikael Dolsten, MD, PhD, said in a statement issued at the time. “The most advanced of them, danuglipron, has demonstrated good efficacy in a twice-daily formulation, and we believe a once-daily formulation has the potential to have a competitive profile in the oral GLP-1 space. Following a thorough analysis of our previous Phase 2b data and trial design, we believe that with the preferred modified release formulation and future trial design optimization, we can advance a competitive oral GLP-1 molecule into registration enabling studies, with the goal of addressing the present and persistent medical needs of people living with obesity.”

Pfizer had previously touted the drug’s phaser 2b results in December of 2023.³

At the time, Dolsten said, “We believe an improved once-daily formulation of danuglipron could play an important role in the obesity treatment paradigm, and we will focus our efforts on gathering the data to understand its potential profile. Results from ongoing and future studies of the once-daily danuglipron modified release formulation will inform a potential path forward with an aim to improve the tolerability profile and optimize both study design and execution.”

2024

Pfizer’s 2024 JP Morgan presentation detailed some of the company’s struggles and difficult launches from the previous year. However, it also focused on the recently completed acquisition of Seagen for $43 billion.

At the time of the acquisition’s completion in December, 2023, Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said,⁴ “Cancer remains a leading cause of death, and one in three people in the U.S. will receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. With one of the largest investments in Pfizer’s history, we are going all in on cancer with the goal of delivering breakthroughs that drastically improve the lives of people with cancer. With Seagen’s proprietary, world-leading Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology, together with the scale and strength of Pfizer's capabilities and expertise, we are poised to change the cancer treatment paradigm. We believe Oncology will be a significant growth driver for Pfizer and contribute meaningfully to the achievement of our near- and long-term financial goals.”

Sources

1. Pfizer Provides Update on Oral GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Danuglipron. Pfizer. April 14, 2025. Accessed December 12, 2025. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-provides-update-oral-glp-1-receptor-agonist
2. Pfizer Advances Development of Once-Daily Formulation of Oral GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Danuglipron. Pfizer. July 11, 2024. Accessed December 12, 2025. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-advances-development-once-daily-formulation-oral-glp
3. Pfizer Announces Topline Phase 2b Results of Oral GLP-1R Agonist, Danuglipron, in Adults with Obesity. Pfizer. December 1, 2023. Accessed December 12, 2025. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-announces-topline-phase-2b-results-oral-glp-1r
4. Pfizer Completes Acquisition of Seagen. Pfizer. December 14, 2023. Accessed December 12, 2025. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-completes-acquisition-seagen