Joel Habener, whose GLP-1 discovery led to Ozempic and Wegovy, dies at 88

Dr. Joel Habener, the American endocrinologist whose discovery of the protein fragment GLP-1 became the basis for drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, died on Dec. 28 in Newton, Mass. He was 88, and his brother Stephen confirmed the death, saying the cause was a heart attack. Dr. Habener’s identification of GLP-1 in 1987—an outcome he described as “a eureka moment” in a 2023 interview—came while he was researching glucagon genes using anglerfish.

He and others found that the fragment regulated blood sugar by acting only on insulin-producing pancreatic cells and only when blood sugar was high. Another researcher, Dr. Jens Juul Holst, independently made the same discovery. Work on GLP-1 eventually produced drugs that have transformed treatment for obesity and diabetes and are being studied for other conditions; the medicines also help with fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, kidney failure and some heart complications, and companies are racing to develop more effective versions than those now made by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

Early human tests produced nausea that made food unappealing—a side effect Dr. Habener said in 2024 “has now become useful for treatment.” Born June 29, 1937, in Indianapolis, Dr. Habener joined Massachusetts General Hospital in 1971 and remained there until his 2023 retirement. He received a Howard Hughes fellowship in 1976, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020 and shared several major prizes with colleagues for GLP-1 research.

Key Topics

Health, Joel Habener, Ozempic, Wegovy, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly