What is Eloralintide?
Eloralintide (development name LY3841136) is a long-acting analogue of amylin, the hormone the pancreas releases together with insulin to tell the brain that food has arrived. It comes out of Eli Lilly's pipeline and sits next to cagrilintide among the once-weekly amylin analogues. The difference is in the receptor profile: eloralintide prefers the amylin 1 receptor and activates the calcitonin receptor far less, while cagrilintide is non-selective and activates the calcitonin receptor as well.
The molecule is a linear peptide carrying a C20 fatty acid at position 26, which binds it to albumin. That gives a half-life of around 13 to 15 days, roughly twice that of cagrilintide. It is injected subcutaneously once a week and ships as a freeze-dried powder in a 10mg vial that you dissolve in bacteriostatic water.
Eloralintide is not approved. The phase 2 data came out in late 2025. The first phase 3 trials have been running since then. There are no long-term data beyond 48 weeks yet.
This information is for research and educational purposes only. No medical advice.
How it works
Amylin acts mainly in the brainstem and the hypothalamus. There it signals that a meal is under way: fullness sets in earlier and lasts longer. The urge to eat between meals drops. Amylin also curbs glucagon release after eating and slows gastric emptying. GLP-1 compounds use a different path, which is why research treats the amylin route as a complement rather than a copy.
Amylin receptors are composite receptors built from the calcitonin receptor plus a helper protein (RAMP). In cell assays eloralintide activates the human AMY1R roughly twelve times more strongly than the plain calcitonin receptor and roughly eleven times more strongly than the AMY3R. The developers' working hypothesis: less activation at the calcitonin receptor means less nausea for the same satiety. In rats eloralintide did cause less taste aversion than cagrilintide. In phase 2 nausea at 1 and 3mg sat at placebo level.
One observation stands apart from the incretin class: pulse rate dropped from the first week on and after 12 weeks at 12mg sat around 14 beats per minute below baseline on average (placebo around 3), instead of rising as it does under GLP-1 agonists. In rats, the weight lost also came mainly from fat mass. Studies suggest this could add up to a distinct cardiovascular profile, but so far that rests on surrogate markers only.
What you need
The list is the same as for the other weekly peptides:
- The Eloralintide vial with the freeze-dried powder
- Bacteriostatic water to dissolve it
- U-100 insulin syringes
- Alcohol swabs for the vial cap and the skin
- A sealable sharps container for used needles
A 1ml syringe (100 units) covers every step up to 3mg. With 2ml of water in the 10mg vial each step lands on whole units, so you do not need half-unit marks.
Reconstitution
The powder is dissolved in bacteriostatic water. The volume of water sets the concentration and with it the units you later draw for your dose on the insulin syringe. With 2ml on 10mg you get 5mg per ml: 0.5mg is then 10 units, 1mg 20, 2mg 40 and 3mg 60 units.
The calculator above works this out for any water volume: pick the vial size and the water. The concentration and units per dose then appear straight away. For the small starting doses, 2 or 3ml are more comfortable than 1ml, otherwise the dose gets tiny and hard to read.
Just add the bac water to the vial, it does not matter if it hits the powder directly. Then swirl or shake until everything is clearly dissolved, both are fine.
Injection
The injection is subcutaneous, into the fat layer under the skin, classically the abdomen (keep about two finger-widths clear of the navel), the front of the thigh or the back of the upper arm.
- Clean the spot with an alcohol swab and let it dry
- Pinch up a small fold of skin
- Insert the needle at a 45 to 90 degree angle
- Inject, slowly or briskly both work, wait a moment, then withdraw
- Put the needle straight into the sharps container
Rotate the site from week to week. In the phase 1 study, injection site reactions (mostly pain) were more frequent than under placebo from 3mg upwards; rotating sites and a clean injection keep that small.
Use and dosing
What the research shows
The development paper (Briere 2025) describes the receptor selectivity, the animal data and a single-dose study in 48 healthy volunteers with 0.04 to 12mg: well tolerated up to the highest dose, half-life of 13 to 15 days. Four weeks after a single 12mg dose body weight was 4.4 percent lower. The multiple-dose phase 1 study (Bhattachar 2026) ran for 12 weeks in 100 participants with overweight or obesity; the active groups received 1.2 to 12mg weekly without titration, the rest placebo. Weight fell by 2.6 to 11.3 percent depending on dose, only 8 percent reported nausea and 10 percent diarrhoea.
The phase 2 trial (Billings 2025, The Lancet) ran for 48 weeks in 263 adults with obesity or overweight and no diabetes. Weight fell by 9 percent at 1mg, 12 percent at 3mg, 18 percent at 6mg and 20 percent at 9mg, versus 0.4 percent under placebo. The escalation from 3 to 9mg reached 16 percent, the one from 6 to 9mg 20 percent. The effect was clearly dose-dependent, but the trial was limited to 48 weeks. What happens after that is open.
A review (Sigalov 2026) sums up the cardiovascular data: pulse rate, blood pressure, high-sensitivity CRP and lipids came down in the early studies. The authors single out the falling pulse rate, because GLP-1 agonists tend to raise heart rate. No amylin analogue has a cardiovascular outcomes trial, so the authors explicitly rate these findings as preliminary. The studies with links are in the source block below.
Side effects
Nausea is the most common side effect, but strongly dose-dependent: in phase 2 it was 11 percent at 1mg and 13 percent at 3mg, against 14 percent under placebo. At 6mg it jumped to 64 percent, at 9mg it was 33 percent. Vomiting and diarrhoea were rare in phase 1 (4 and 10 percent). Tolerability at low doses is the real argument for the compound. It only holds as long as the dose stays low.
Fatigue rose with the dose in phase 2: 0 percent at 1mg, 13 percent at 3mg, 29 percent at 6mg, 43 percent at 9mg, against 12 percent under placebo. Add decreased appetite (that is the point), headache and injection site reactions from 3mg upwards. In the phase 1 study, four participants reported low mood, one at 6mg and three at 12mg. The three in the 12mg group stopped treatment. The complaints resolved within two to four days. That is a small but serious signal for high doses and one more reason to stay low.
Because the half-life is around two weeks, side effects do not fade in days after stopping but over weeks. Whoever steps up too fast keeps the nausea for just as long. Long-term data beyond 48 weeks are missing. There are no data on pregnancy, children or pre-existing conditions.
Storage
The undissolved powder is robust, normal room temperature (around 20 to 25 degrees) is fine, ideally kept dark and dry. For longer periods it can also go in the fridge.
Once dissolved, the solution goes into the fridge (2 to 8 degrees) and keeps for several months there. The bacteriostatic water brings a preservative that keeps the dissolved form stable. With a 10mg vial and 0.5 to 1mg per week, one vial lasts ten to twenty weeks. The solution stays usable long enough for that.
Do not freeze it and do not leave it in the sun. If the solution turns gel-like or lumpy, do not use the vial. A slight cloudiness on its own is no reason to discard it.
