White House · Donald Trump · Ars Technica
Trump may be mystery patient in odd case of 79yo getting experimental obesity drug
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
In an extremely odd case, a single 79-year-old patient was granted early access to Eli Lilly’s powerful, still-experimental obesity drug retatrutide through the Food and Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program—raising immediate questions if that sole patient is President Donald Trump, according to a report by Stat News.
Key facts
- The access request was first made in April, when the person was 79 years old (Trump turned 80 on June 14)
- Data from a Phase 3 trial that Lilly released in May indicates that patients with obesity (but without diabetes) who took the drug for 80 weeks lost 28 percent of their weight, an amount comparable
- This story was updated on June 23, 2026, to include the social media response from Kush Desai
- Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1
Summary
Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1. Millions of Americans with obesity are eager to get the drug, with options being limited so far to enrolling in a clinical trial or trying to obtain it by dodgy methods. But according to a barebones public notice and Stat’s sources, a single person has been granted early access through the expanded access, aka “compassionate use” pathway, which is typically used to grant access to patients with a “serious or immediately life-threatening disease or condition” and who are not able to enroll in a clinical trial, often because they are too ill.