It is early access to an experimental treatment against obesity, granted to a single 79-year-old patient, which has stirred up health magazines and sparked reactions even at the White House. Developed by the pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly, retatrutide, a weekly injectable treatment, acting on three hormonal receptors, is a new generation drug which is still the subject of clinical trials.
It may be prescribed to treat obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea and other conditions. For patients suffering from obesity, it could have a result comparable to that of bariatric surgery.
But what piqued the attention of the American magazine Stat, specializing in health, was an unusual authorization guaranteed in April 2026 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) via its “compassionate use” program to a mystery patient aged 79… The same age as President Donald Trump at that time.
Unusual access
According to the magazine, only one person was able to benefit from early access to the highly anticipated drug via this procedure, which is usually reserved for patients with a “serious or immediately life-threatening illness or condition” and who cannot participate in a clinical trial, often due to the severity of their state of health.
The access request was submitted by a clinician attached to the National Institutes of Health, for a patient suffering from refractory obesity, obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension. But the public announcement of this expanded access omits much of the information usually published, such as the conditions allowing a patient to be eligible for this type of device.
While a Stat journalist, Lizzy Lawrence, asked state representatives if the president was the patient in question, the pathologies of sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension not appearing in the note relating to his last medical check-up, White House spokesperson Kush Desai, like Emily Hilliard, spokesperson for the Health Department, refused to answer.
It was only after the publication of an article that Kush Desai indicated on social media that this experimental treatment was not intended for Donald Trump, to which Lizzy Lawrence responded: “I have asked you, the FDA and HHS (the United States Department of Health and Human Services, editor’s note)several times yesterday, if this request concerned the president. No one answered my question directly.”
If Kush Desai judged the question “idiot”the dozen experts interviewed by Stat considered it extremely unusual for a pharmaceutical company to grant such authorization for a common condition to a single patient, rather than to a cohort of patients with a specific profile.
