December 27, 2025
Shots fired at shots
How Pfizer ended up passing on my GLP-1 work back in the early '90s
Pfizer passed on ‘skinny shots’ in the ’90s—now commenters are roasting execs
TLDR: An insider says Pfizer abandoned early GLP‑1 injection research in the ’90s despite promising results. Commenters roast executive judgment, argue injections aren’t a barrier (hello, COVID), share archive links, and debate whether this misstep cost years of progress—making today’s blockbuster weight-loss drugs feel like a long-delayed win.
Remember those GLP-1 “skinny shot” drugs that exploded in the 2020s? The internet is gobsmacked to learn the seeds were planted back in the late ’80s—then Pfizer walked away in the early ’90s because… injections. Former Harvard dean Jeffrey Flier says promising results were shelved when execs decided people wouldn’t want a diabetes therapy that required a shot. Cue comment section meltdown. One user dropped archive links and a backup mirror like a librarian mic drop, while others declared this “decade-delaying” and “human-cost” bad judgment. GLP-1, btw, is a natural hormone that helps the body release insulin and curb appetite—now a blockbuster for diabetes and weight loss.
The hottest takes? Rage at executives “paid to not decide,” jokes about “shots fired at shots,” and a COVID-era twist: commenters claim the pandemic proved people will take injections when the stakes are high. One argued you could’ve solved the market question with a simple survey of folks living with obesity. Another cheerfully notes the research is old, which “increases security” around safety. Meanwhile, the paywall rebels turned the thread into a scavenger hunt for free reads. The vibe: a mix of schadenfreude, lesson-learning, and plenty of “how’d they miss this?” disbelief.
Key Points
- •An early commercial GLP-1 development effort began in 1988, funded by Pfizer in alliance with California Biotechnology.
- •Despite promising results, Pfizer ended the GLP-1 program around 1991 after judging the therapeutic approach not worth continuing.
- •The initiative originated in 1987 when John Baxter of UCSF invited collaboration on a metabolic disease startup.
- •Harvard researchers Ron Kahn and Bruce Spiegelman joined the effort, which targeted insulin analogues, sensitizers, and gut-derived incretins.
- •The team sought to identify the obesity-causing protein in genetically obese mice, preceding the ob gene’s identification by about six years.