Weight-loss wonder drugs
Following the runaway success of ‘miracle’ drug Wegovy (semaglutide) and other GLP-1 agonists, 2025 is likely to bring results and approvals for a new wave of treatments targeting obesity. The pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, will wrap up a phase III trial for its oral pill orforglipron, evaluating its long-term safety in people with type 2 diabetes. The drug is easier to produce and potentially cheaper than existing treatments.
How rival weight-loss drugs fare at treating obesity, diabetes and more
Trials for Eli Lilly’s triple-action drug, retatrutide, will continue throughout 2025. In its phase II trial, retatrutide showed unprecedented efficacy, with people on the highest dose experiencing a 24.2% weight loss over 11 months (currently available drugs tend to yield around 15–20% weight loss over a similar period). Another company, Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, is preparing a phase III trial for its drug maritide, which can be taken monthly and targets two pathways involved in blood sugar control and metabolism.
Researchers will continue to explore the potential of GLP-1 agonists to treat other illnesses, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and addiction.
The year could also mark a turning point in how pain is treated. US regulators are expected to complete a review of a non-opioid painkiller called suzetrigine in January. If approved, the drug, developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston, Massachusetts, would be part of the first new class of drugs to treat acute pain in more than 20 years.
Trump takes over
Donald Trump’s return to the office of US president in January could bring sweeping changes to US science — with global ramifications. During his previous term in office, Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, an international commitment to limit global warming to 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Some researchers are concerned that he might do so again, as well as rolling back climate regulations on power plants and automobiles.
Trump is also expected to introduce policies that have implications for reproductive health and medicine. His nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr — known for his scepticism towards vaccines — as health and human services secretary has been criticized by scientists. The appointment of billionaire Elon Musk to lead an advisory body named the Department of Government Efficiency could impact the budgets and workforces of science agencies. During his election campaign, Trump promised to repeal President Joe Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence (AI), a guideline for developing AI technology safely and responsibly.
Donald Trump will become US president for the second time on 20 January 2025.Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Pandemic prep
March 2025 will mark five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused millions of deaths, forced widespread lockdowns and spurred the rapid development and roll-out of vaccines.
The world is still learning how to prepare for and prevent future pandemics, and member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) missed their original June 2024 deadline to agree on a global pandemic treaty. Talks reached a deadlock over disagreements on rules for sharing samples and genomic sequences of pathogens, and for the use of technologies that can help low- and middle-income countries to produce vaccines, drugs and testing kits quickly during pandemics. Member states are now aiming to finalize the agreement text by May 2025. These efforts come at a crucial time: in August, the WHO updated its list of pathogens that could spark the next pandemic to include more than 30 microorganisms, including the viruses that cause influenza A, dengue and mpox.
Probing particles
Particle physicists are hoping to see the European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, begin operations in 2025, after more than a decade of construction. This colossal machine will generate neutron pulses by firing a beam of protons — accelerated to nearly the speed of light — at a heavy-metal target. Scientists will use these neutrons to probe the structure of materials.
Meanwhile, a detailed feasibility study for a proposed US$17-billion supercollider at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory outside Geneva, Switzerland, will wrap up in 2025. The study will evaluate the cost, technical aspects and environmental impacts of building a particle accelerator 91 kilometres in circumference: the Future Circular Collider (FCC), intended to succeed the Large Hadron Collider. The report will feed into a final decision on the FCC in 2028.
Following the success of semaglutide, several new weight-loss drugs are in development. Credit: Gavin Rodgers/pixel8000 via Alamy
Mind-reading machines
In 2025, China plans to test brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies that could compete with implants made by Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink, based in Fremont, California. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced plans to develop BCI devices for applications ranging from medical rehabilitation to virtual reality. One of these products is NEO, a wireless and minimally invasive BCI with eight electrodes placed over the brain’s sensorimotor cortex, designed to restore hand movement in people with paralysis. Clinical trials for NEO began in 2023, and early results showed that a participant with spinal-cord injury was able to eat, drink and grasp objects after nine months of using the BCI at home. The researchers behind NEO plan to expand to larger trials in 2025.