Ozempic<\/a> and Wegovy. \u200b\u200bA seemingly esoteric investigation into a gut hormone transformed into a global medical and cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cGLP-1 hormones are one of the most important discoveries in modern medicine and have had a tremendous impact on one of the most common metabolic diseases,\u201d says Dr. Bernard Zinman, \u200b\u200bprofessor emeritus in the department of medicine at the University of Toronto \u200b\u200band a longtime mentor of Drucker\u2019s. \u200b\u200b\u201cWe have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and for the first time we have a therapy that can transform people\u2019s lives and diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Get our weekly newsletter \u2013 the people, places, and ideas revealing where Canada is headed.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bToday, roughly one in 12 Canadian adults reports taking a prescription GLP-1 drug, while demand for the medication is soaring. \u200b\u200bSome GLP-1 drugs have also been shown to reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular and kidney complications, \u200b\u200bwith potential to treat a host of other conditions, including liver diseases and substance abuse disorders.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bAppetite-suppressing blockbuster drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have also unleashed a global frenzy over the promise of dramatic weight loss from a once-weekly shot. \u200b\u200bAnd they\u2019ve invaded popular culture, embraced by Hollywood celebrities and superstar athletes like Serena Williams and Shaquille O\u2019Neal,\u200b\u200b along with TikTok fitness influencers from Los Angeles to Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bThe economic impact has also been extraordinary: \u200b\u200bOzempic is Canada\u2019s best-selling medication, with sales of all semaglutide injection medicines in Canada totalling $3.5 billion in 2025. In 2023, \u200b\u200bNovo Nordisk, the Danish company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, had sales of about $50 billion, \u200b\u200bequivalent to more than eight per cent of Denmark\u2019s GDP at the time.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Drucker was a winner of the $4.2-million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, often called the \u201cOscars of Science,\u201d \u200b\u200bfor his pioneering work on GLP-1. And while Nobel nominations are confidential, Drucker was recently named a 2026 Clarivate Citation Laureate, an honour that identifies researchers whose work is considered \u201cof Nobel class,\u201d which has fuelled speculation that he could be a contender for this year\u2019s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bDrucker said his zigzagging journey, from unravelling GLP-1 biology in the 1980s to unlocking the potential of the Gila monster a decade later \u2013 and enduring a backlash against the first generation of GLP-1 drugs \u2013 underscored the serendipity of scientific discovery.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2aad0800e7b1476fa435969d1508e1561d2859a1-2880x1921.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cThere was no eureka moment for GLP-1,\u201d Drucker recalls. Just decades of trial and error, and the stubborn determination to keep going.<\/p>\n
(Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
John Ussher, a former postdoctoral fellow in Drucker\u2019s lab who is now a professor at the University of Alberta, describes Drucker as a natural-born skeptic and relentless in the lab. \u200b\u200bHe compares his determination to that of a dog trying to reach something just out of reach on a countertop \u2013 \u201cbut Dan eventually gets the treat,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bDrucker is also fiercely supportive of his fellows, whom he calls \u201cmy kids.\u201d \u200b\u200bWhen Ussher\u2019s first research paper on how GLP-1 benefits the cardiovascular system was rejected by a prestigious journal, he felt deflated. \u200b\u200bThree hours later, he received a seven-page response Drucker had written to the publication, meticulously arguing that the decision was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cIt would take me two days to write this seven-page document,\u201d Ussher recalls, \u201cand he had done it in two to three hours.\u201d The journal agreed to reconsider but ultimately rejected it again.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bDrucker \u201cloves to argue and he never wants to lose an argument,\u201d Ussher says. It could be painful when fellows were excited about a result and Drucker was unconvinced. \u200bUssher thinks Drucker would have made an exceptional lawyer \u2013 during the nearly five years he spent in the lab, Ussher rarely won an argument against him.<\/p>\n
![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5fdfe3ad48ee58a0bea8ca218e084b44a94f7f9d-2880x1921.jpg\")
Daniel Drucker in his lab at Mount Sinai. He is fiercely supportive of his fellows, whom he calls “my kids.” (Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
Maria Jes\u00fas Gonz\u00e1lez Rell\u00e1n, a postdoctoral fellow who worked with Drucker for several years, was initially shocked when she saw his Twitter post advertising the position.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cHelp us figure out gut hormone action \u2013 you don\u2019t have to be highly motivated, or brilliant \u2013 we aren\u2019t any of those things either,\u201d the post read, \u200b\u200bwith typical Druckerian self-effacement. \u201cCuriosity, high ethical standards, thoughtfulness, a flair for generating reproducible (negative) results, that\u2019s how we roll.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bBefore Drucker interviewed Gonz\u00e1lez Rell\u00e1n, she had endured a gruelling nine-hour Harvard interview. \u200b\u200bHer interview with Drucker lasted minutes and barely touched on science. He told her to visit the lab and Toronto to make sure she felt happy there. She later realized he had already read all her scientific papers.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bDuring her first three years at the laboratory, she thought Drucker, perennially \u201ccalm\u201d and \u201cpoker faced,\u201d was indifferent to her research project on GLP-1. \u200b\u200bThen he suggested sending it to the prominent journal Cell Metabolism, even though she still had experiments to complete. \u200b\u200b\u201cI thought it needed years more work, but he saw before me that it was ready.\u201d The paper was ultimately published as a cover story.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bReflecting on his perceived lack of enthusiasm, Drucker says, \u201cMy wife says I\u2019m smile challenged. I\u2019m not a jumping-up-and-down kind of guy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bGonz\u00e1lez Rell\u00e1n, who\u2019s Spanish, compared Drucker\u2019s approach to Spain\u2019s World Cup-winning coach Luis de la Fuente, who values players as much for who they are as for how they play: \u201cEverybody in the lab feels like all they have to do is come here every day, do their best and nothing else matters. You just have to be yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It may comfort struggling students to know that the young Daniel Drucker was a self-described \u201cvery average student\u201d who argued with his teachers and preferred sports over school.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bHis evolution into transformative scientist took root in the 1950s in the Montreal of Mordecai Richler: a postwar Jewish community of close-knit families scarred by war and pogroms. \u200b\u200bHebrew school, poppyseed bagels and smoked meat were part of the fabric of daily life. Drucker recalls being taunted as a \u201cdirty Jew\u201d while playing hockey matches. \u200b\u200bHe relished Canadiens games, and a job delivering the Montreal Star.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cMontreal was an idyllic time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/43f66a6427e20db65dcd3d678839a8f0a8b0fe92-2880x1921.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5e0cfff668e1def5f5f31ad9f244d24449e5833f-900x900.jpg\")
Drucker, his wife, Cheryl Rosen, and Drucker’s parents.(Supplied)\u200b\u200b\u200bThe only child of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Canada after meeting in Israel after the war, Drucker attributes his tenacity and strong work ethic to his parents.<\/p>\n
\u200b<\/p>\n
(Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200bHis mother, a dietitian and dressmaker, now 98, was born in Mielec, Poland. \u200b\u200bDuring the Second World War, she hid in an attic, and survived prison and a ghetto; her mother and young sister, whom she was separated from during her escape, were never found again. His father, an entrepreneur and serial inventor, had a \u201crelatively easier time.\u201d \u200b\u200bHe joined the Czech brigade of the British Army and fought in Egypt against Rommel, where he was wounded.<\/p>\n
The two met in \u200b\u200b1945 when his father spotted his mother on the shore among hundreds of refugees arriving by boat in Israel. He was so smitten, he divorced his then wife and married her.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cSometimes my father would say, \u2018I was a Holocaust survivor,\u2019 and my mother would say, \u2018No, you weren\u2019t. I was a survivor,\u2019\u201d Drucker says.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bHis career as an endocrinologist was preordained. When he was 12, his mother took him to one, beside herself that her only son was so short. He was 4-foot-8. She was 4-foot-10. \u201cThe endocrinologist looked down at both of us, and said, \u2018Lady, let me explain to you how genetics work,\u2019\u201d Drucker recalls.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhile his mercurial father was extremely driven, he was as adept at losing money as he was at making it. When Drucker was a child, the family was forced to leave their four-bedroom, split-level house in the leafy Montreal suburb of the Town of Mount Royal for a small apartment in C\u00f4te-de-Liesse, next to a highway.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bThe reversal of fortune proved formative. \u201cSeeing my father repeatedly go bankrupt was sobering,\u201d he says. \u201cWith medicine, I knew there would always be patients and a salary.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/32a024721678d494139adb1cafdaf500c3602c24-2880x1921.jpg\")
\u200b\u200bExendin-4, derived from the Gila, became the basis for exenatide, the first GLP-1 drug approved for Type 2 diabetes.(Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bA Shakespearean tragedy written around 1606 also deserves some credit for Ozempic.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bIn high school, a teacher chided Drucker for an essay in which he failed to capture the bard\u2019s emotional state when writing Macbeth and gave him a grade of 70 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018This is 1971, not the 17th century. How the hell do you know what Shakespeare was thinking?\u2019\u201d Drucker says. \u201cSo I gradually gravitated toward science because there was less opportunity for my teachers to tell me I was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bDrucker excelled academically in his science classes and was accepted to medical school at the University of Toronto, where his nickname was The Phantom. No one ever saw him in class.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bZinman, his mentor, recalls that Drucker infuriated his fellow medical school classmates by winning the gold medal for surgery after acing the written exam, despite seldom showing up in the OR.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cHe is extremely smart and that can be intimidating,\u201d Zinman says. \u200b\u200bDrucker describes himself as sometimes being \u201coverconfident\u201d and \u201ccocky\u201d in those days.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhen he did show up to class, he sat in the back row and kibitzed with friends. \u200b\u200bHe also had another incentive: a fellow medical student, Cheryl Rosen, who would later become his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one cared about gut hormones. Classical endocrinologists looked at us like we were miscreants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Daniel Drucker<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bRosen, now an eminent dermatologist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, helped lead the campaign that resulted in Ontario banning indoor tanning for people under 18. \u200b\u200bTheir courtship, she says, had been on-again, off-again. At one point, Drucker presented her with an engagement ring made from a bread-bag tie, telling her, \u201cI\u2019m going to marry you but not yet. We will meet again later.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200b\u200bShe was appalled,\u201d Drucker says.<\/p>\n
The two broke up for a time, then reunited as Drucker predicted. \u200b\u200bThey\u2019ve been married for 45 years.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bRosen, who owns a silver Gila brooch, says that if Drucker is reserved in the lab, he saves his enthusiasm for the Maple Leafs and Blue Jays, takes pleasure in wielding one of his two chainsaws to cut down dead trees and feels great pride in his Judaism.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cHe does get excited,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/0f1c04648deea2a752a3270448a1326b406cccd2-900x900.jpg\")
At the University of Toronto, Drucker met fellow medical student Cheryl Rosen, who would later become his wife.
\n(Supplied)<\/p>\n
When their sons were young, he took time away from the lab to show their classmates how to make potato latkes. He would never be in the lab on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bBut there was a serious side to the student who spent so much time avoiding class. \u200b\u200bIn 1984, Drucker set off to Harvard for a research fellowship in molecular endocrinology, eager to study thyroid disease, an interest from medical school.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bArriving at Harvard Medical School, where researchers had helped introduce insulin to the U.S. and lay the groundwork for the polio vaccine, should have been a moment of academic triumph.\u200b\u200b Instead, Drucker was overcome with disappointment: his adviser had told him that the thyroid lab was closing, and he suggested Drucker study an obscure hormone called glucagon instead.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cI came home and told my wife, \u2018I\u2019m supposed to work on the glucagon gene now. No one cares about glucagon. What kind of loser project is this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bIn fact, glucagon would prove to be a gateway to the biological system that ultimately led to his most significant discoveries: a family of gut hormones involved in regulating blood sugar and metabolism.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bA year or so after arriving at Harvard, Drucker had an inkling he might be on to something when he arrived at the lab to discover that his notebooks had disappeared. \u200bHe initially feared they had been stolen. Instead, his mentor, Joel Habener, had taken them to the hospital\u2019s patent lawyers.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bYet the young scientist was hardly thinking about transforming medicine. After three years in Boston, with a young family and a postdoctoral salary that was barely enough for toppings on takeout pizza, he was ready to come home. \u200b\u200bIn 1987, the University of Toronto offered him a faculty position and laboratory space, and Drucker returned, drawn by the prospect of a quieter family life.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/757cd460333b8e6d5cb46327f3c1887fcc893b0e-2880x1921.jpg\")
For years, Drucker’s GLP-1 research was a lonely struggle. Pharmaceutical companies initially scoffed at the lizard venom protein. At medical conferences, almost no one showed up for his presentations.(Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhile Toronto provided a reassuring backdrop, Drucker embarked on a long and sometimes frustrating period of scientific breakthroughs and setbacks.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bIn 1996, his laboratory was among the groups whose experiments showed GLP-1 could reduce food intake, opening another path toward the drugs that would eventually grab headlines around the world.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bHe also turned to GLP-2, another gut hormone, discovering that it stimulates intestinal cell growth. The work led to teduglutide, a drug for patients with short-bowel syndrome that generated nearly $1 billion in global sales in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bYet for years, GLP-1 research was a lonely struggle. Big pharmaceutical companies, including Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, initially scoffed at the lizard venom protein. At medical conferences, almost no one showed up for his presentations.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one cared about gut hormones,\u201d he says. \u201cClassical endocrinologists looked at us like we were miscreants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bEven as GLP-1 emerged as a treatment for diabetes, the response was hardly enthusiastic. Exenatide, the first drug designed to mimic GLP-1, was approved in 2005. Most people with Type 2 diabetes were accustomed to pills, while exenatide had to be injected. Early trials also found that patients often experienced nausea and vomiting.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bAs more GLP-1 drugs reached the market, they faced intense safety concerns, including reports of pancreatitis and allegations linking them to pancreatic and thyroid cancers. \u200b\u200bLawsuits followed, and prominent diabetes researchers questioned their safety in the New York Times.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bYet the drugs worked. Drucker, by then one of the field\u2019s leading authorities, became their outspoken defender, arguing there was no credible evidence that GLP-1 drugs caused cancer.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhen lawyers for the plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits over the drugs\u2019 safety threatened to subpoena him, Drucker taunted them: \u201cI told them, \u2018That will be the saddest, lowest day of your legal career that you will live to regret forever.\u2019 \u200b\u200bThey were afraid of me, of the facts, and of my conviction.\u201d In the end, most of the cases were dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bLooking back, Drucker says, the backlash taught him the importance of data-driven rigour and of not backing down.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cThese classes of drugs almost got killed for safety issues because the criticism was misguided and incorrect and reflected sloppy science,\u201d Drucker says. \u201cI\u2019m still telling my trainees that it\u2019s better to be second and right than to be first and wrong. Under-promise and over-deliver is the model that I live my scientific career by.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790993545_56_hqdefault.jpg\")
Meet the Canadian scientist behind Ozempic<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n
The work of Daniel Drucker has resonated around the world in a way that few Canadian medical breakthroughs have since Banting and Best discovered insulin in 1921. \u200b\u200bDespite the blockbuster commercial success of GLP-1 drugs, some have asked why Canada hasn\u2019t reaped greater financial rewards for the ingenuity that took root in its laboratories.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bBut Drucker is quick to stress that Ozempic wasn\u2019t a Canadian discovery commercialized elsewhere. His foundational GLP-1 research, he says, was conducted during his fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, not in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bThough sometimes dubbed the \u201cfather of Ozempic,\u201d Drucker hasn\u2019t made a loonie from the drug, even though he owns dozens of other patents. \u200b\u200bHis research helped lay the scientific foundation for Ozempic, but Novo Nordisk developed semaglutide and brought it to market.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhat Drucker does believe is that Canada is losing out on scientific patents and innovation because its fiscal and financial infrastructure isn\u2019t conducive to drug development. \u201cThe taxes are high. There\u2019s not an ecosystem of venture capital that\u2019s willing to take risks. And the incentives for royalties and licensing revenue are not there compared to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bTrim and blessed by good genetics, Drucker doesn\u2019t personally take GLP-1 medicine. Instead, he exercises every day in his home gym for at least 30 minutes, jogs several times a week and plays golf by himself, armed with a $250 Kirkland club from Costco. \u200b\u200bWhen his horrified sons \u2013 a dermatologist and two lawyers \u2013 recently bought him a $1,000 TaylorMade driver for Father\u2019s Day, he tested the two against each other and kept the Costco club.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bHe drives a Hyundai sedan, and says his prized possessions are his family and the silver candlesticks his mother buried near her home in Poland during the Holocaust, which he keeps in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bHis research, he says, is\u202f\u201cjust a job. The real important things in my life are outside of the lab and outside of my scientific career.\u201d People expect him to \u201cwax poetic about the joys of scientific discovery. And I do love it. But I don’t love it as much as my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/26c032103000214c32c8925fc9335ffe2d8ea4b8-2880x4318.jpg\")
(Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bBritain\u2019s Sun tabloid recently featured a photo of Drucker alongside \u200b\u200bLottie Moss, Kate Moss\u2019s half-sister and an OnlyFans star \u200b\u200bwho was hospitalized after taking a high dose of Ozempic and suffering a seizure that she said was caused by severe dehydration. \u200b\u200bThe headline? \u201cI invented fat jab\u2026 why there could be a HUGE undiscovered benefit for women & a dangerous problem with super-thin celebs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bYet for all the hyperbole, the drug\u2019s mega-success doesn\u2019t trouble him.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhen the Ozempic craze first exploded in 2022, he was concerned that there was a sort of \u201cOzempic Hunger Games,\u201d in which wealthy people seeking to lose weight were sometimes gobbling up supply at the expense of people with Type 2 diabetes and other serious diseases who needed it more. Now, however, with supply more abundant, he has no issue with people using GLP-1s for weight loss, if they\u2019re supervised by a physician and educated about the benefits and risks, which can include gastrointestinal side effects and gallbladder problems.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cIf it\u2019s a healthy 35-year-old woman taking Ozempic who has a wedding coming up and wants to get into a size 8 dress as opposed to a size 14, I\u2019m not that concerned,\u201d he says. \u201cThese medicines today have been around for 21 years. This is the most studied class of medicines for chronic metabolic disease that we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b \u200bAt the same time, he adds, Ozempic has helped destigmatize obesity and raise awareness that it is a chronic disease of the brain: \u201cI think these drugs have given many of these patients a new lease on life and allowed them to regain their self-respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b \u200bA few days after our final interview with Drucker, he agreed to be photographed at home in Toronto \u200b\u200bwith a live, venomous Gila monster named Cheerios. In deference to the family cat, Cheerios was photographed outside.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bWhen I asked him how it went, he replied by email, \u201cI survived the lizard shoot \ud83d\ude0a.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200bBut the live Gila was only a temporary guest. The dead one in Drucker\u2019s laboratory freezer has been with him for three decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may sound wacky, but I can\u2019t dispose of the animal that made a huge contribution to science,\u201d he said. \u201cI just can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decades-long journey to discovering the weight-loss drug that changed the world \u200b\u200btook an unlikely turn in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":["post-914143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4d9d78924a752cc5d954122b00352d8e2fbe1db4-3231x2228.jpg\")
The Gila\u2019s salivary glands were central to the first GLP-1 drug \u2013 and one of the most consequential advances in modern medicine. (Daniel Ehrenworth\/Be Giant)![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/9d19cece26e7864bd8079d3615b6df67757681af-720x480.gif\")
Drucker keeps the Gila that spurred his discovery in a freezer in his laboratory at Toronto\u2019s Mount Sinai Hospital.(Mike Wong\/Be Giant)<\/p>\n