Breakthrough Prize recognizes Daniel Drucker for work leading to diabetes, anti-obesity drugs

Daniel Drucker, the Canadian scientist renowned for discoveries that sparked the advent of Ozempic and other GLP-1 medicines for diabetes and obesity, has added yet another accolade to his growing collection: the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

With a total of six $3-million prizes and billed as the “Oscars of Science,” Breakthrough Prizes are awarded by leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in recognition of transformative advances in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics.

Drucker, a senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanebaum Research Institute (LTRI) at Sinai Health and University Professor of medicine in the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, shared a $3-million life sciences prize with Joel Habener of Harvard University, Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen, Svetlana Mojsov of Rockefeller University and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen of Novo Nordisk.

The researchers were honoured at a star-studded gala in Santa Monica, Calif., on April 5, receiving their award from singer-songwriter and tech entrepreneur Will.i.am.

“It feels wonderful to be recognized, not just for me personally, but for all my co-workers and trainees throughout my career,” said Drucker, who holds the Banting and Best Diabetes Centre Novo Nordisk Chair in Incretin Biology. “For a physician, there is no bigger reward than changing people’s lives for the better and the Breakthrough Prize reflects that.”

Drucker’s prize received widespread media attention, with the Canadian Press noting that his breakthroughs “have changed the lives of millions of people around the world.” 

GLP-1 medicines burst into public consciousness in recent years following evidence of their myriad health benefits.

These therapies mimic the action of GLP-1, a gut hormone that promotes insulin secretion in the pancreas, providing a treatment strategy for diabetes. Preclinical research done in Toronto also showed that GLP-1 acted on the brain to reduce appetite, which helps with weight loss, and has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The breakthroughs can be traced back to Drucker’s seminal discovery of GLP-1’s actions as a research fellow in Habener’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital in the mid-1980s.

Drucker’s experiments highlighted GLP-1’s role in stimulating insulin secretion in response to elevated glucose levels, a finding that suggested GLP-1 could be used to stimulate insulin production in patients with type 2 diabetes, whose natural insulin production is impaired.

Groundbreaking as the discovery was, translating it into a viable medication was fraught with challenges. “People got sick when initially injected with it; they threw up, and the beneficial effects didn't last very long,” said Drucker, who earned his medical degree at U of T in 1980 before returning as faculty member seven years later.

Nearly two decades of innovations would follow before GLP-1 garnered regulatory approval.

In the mid-1990s, New York-based scientist John Eng discovered that the hormone exenatide – isolated from the Gila monster, a venomous lizard – mimicked the actions of GLP-1. So Drucker set out to clone the Gila monster’s genes for exenatide and GLP-1, which required transporting a lizard from a Utah zoo to Toronto with help from experts at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Several years of clinical research followed, with the lizard-derived exenatide becoming the first GLP-1 based medication approved for treating type 2 diabetes in 2005.

“On behalf of the entire University of Toronto community, I am delighted to congratulate Professor Drucker on his receiving yet another high-profile and richly deserved accolade for his game-changing contributions to the development of GLP-1-based medicines,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “Professor Drucker’s work exemplifies the transformative power of scientific inquiry, and he is a continued source of inspiration for students and scholars across our university.”

Beyond his work with GLP-1, Drucker also discovered the actions of GLP-2, which has resulted in treatments for short bowel syndrome – a rare disorder characterized by an abnormally short intestine. His research showed GLP-2 could stimulate intestinal growth, and in 2021, the GLP-2 analogue teduglutide – discovered in Drucker’s lab – became the first approved chronic treatment for short bowel syndrome.

Today, Drucker’s lab is delving into broader applications of GLP-1 for everything from Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis to cancer and substance use disorders. “There’s something about GLP-1 that mitigates a lot of chronic diseases that people have, and we really need to understand better how that works,” Drucker said.

Recently, Drucker’s team demonstrated that GLP-1 medicines act on the brain to reduce inflammation across the body in preclinical models. His lab is also exploring potential interactions between GLP-1 and cancer – including whether GLP-1 medicines can reduce cancer growth and augment the efficacy of traditional cancer treatments by sensitizing the immune system to target and eliminate cancer cells.

Drucker’s work has resulted in a growing number of prestigious awards, including the VinFuture Special Prize, Wolf Prize in Medicine, Warren Triennial Prize and Canada International Gairdner Award. 

GLP-1-based diabetes drugs were named 2023 Breakthrough of the Year by the journal Science, with Drucker named among TIME's Most Influential People of 2024.

Anne-Claude Gingras, director of LTRI and vice-president of research at Sinai Health, said the Breakthrough Prize represented a “thrilling and highly deserved” recognition of Drucker’s work.

“We are incredibly proud to count him among our distinguished team at Sinai Health, and I extend my heartfelt congratulations to him," said Gingras, who is also a professor of molecular genetics in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

For his part, Drucker remains focused on the meticulous and incremental process of research. “Science consists of a few good hours on a few good days – and sometimes bad months and years,” he said, adding that the personal testimonies of people whose lives are transformed by these medical breakthroughs outweigh any award.

“It's profoundly emotional when I hear people say how these treatments have allowed them to reclaim their lives.”

Read more about Daniel Drucker at Sinai Health