Gene therapy can now reprogram your body to make its own weight-loss hormones.
No weekly injections needed.
In a groundbreaking leap beyond weekly injections, scientists say they’ve developed a way to reprogram the body to produce its own GLP-1 – the hormone mimicked by blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
Two biotech startups, including Fractyl Health and RenBio, are testing gene therapy techniques that could turn existing cells into GLP-1 “factories.” In mice, the treatment not only caused dramatic weight loss – up to 20% of body weight in just three weeks – but also improved blood sugar levels and prevented weight gain in animals fed high-fat diets.
Fractyl’s approach uses a virus to insert DNA into cells of the pancreas, while RenBio delivers DNA instructions through a saline solution and mild electric pulses into muscle tissue.
The goal is to achieve the benefits of GLP-1 drugs – weight loss, blood sugar control, heart protection, and more through a one-time treatment. While the idea remains unproven in humans, early results in pigs and monkeys are promising. Still, experts caution that gene therapy comes with serious risks. Unlike weekly injections, these therapies could be irreversible and may pose long-term risks to the pancreas. But if successful, this next-gen approach could redefine how obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease are treated shifting from ongoing medication to lasting, internal hormone production.
Source: “Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out a Way to Reprogram the Pancreas to Produce GLP-1s Without Ozempic,” Futurism, Nov 9, 2025
