Dr.BariatricHTX said:

It helps to say which part of this you are uncertain about.

That holds where the measurement is reliable. Where it is noisy — and a lot of what gets tracked here is noisy — the same reasoning produces confident nonsense.

jim_asheville said:

The phase 2 numbers were about 24% mean weight loss at 48 weeks on the top dose, with the curve still descending at the end of the study.

This answered a question I did not know how to ask. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.

Dr.BariatricHTX said:

It helps to say which part of this you are uncertain about.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. Pushing back on the consensus forming here. Consistency is not the same as correctness, and a board that agrees with itself quickly is usually agreeing with the first person who sounded certain.

One concrete data point for the thread. Say what you would expect to see if you were wrong, before you look. It is a small discipline and it changes what you notice.

Moderator note: good thread. Keeping it here rather than moving it, because the question is general enough to be useful.