Eli Lilly Chief Scientific Officer Dan Skovronsky spoke to CNBC about obesity pills and more on the future of weight loss.

The weight-loss drug boom has transformed Eli Lilly (LLY), the maker of Zepbound, into the largest healthcare company in the world. Now, the pharma giant wants to reinvest its success with weight-loss meds into tackling some of the world’s toughest health challenges.

One participant lost 22% of her weight in nine months — substantially faster than the rate seen with approved GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy or Zepbound. Her weight dropped so much that researchers reduced her dose of the treatment, called retatrutide. Still, she continued to feel too nauseous, so she decided by herself to start skipping every other dose.

Popular weight-loss therapies like Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound result in both fat and muscle loss.

Eli Lilly is betting big on its experimental oral weight-loss drug even before reporting data from its late-stage trial by recording nearly $550 million in "pre-launch inventory" in its financial statements,

Eli Lilly’s ($LLY) new weight loss pill is still in clinical trials and has not yet been approved by regulators. But that hasn’t stopped the