TRIUMPH 3 Retatrutide Results: People With Heart Disease

TRIUMPH 3 retatrutide results, reported by Lilly on July 23, 2026, show an average weight loss of 22.6% on 12 mg and 21.6% on 9 mg after 80 weeks in people with severe obesity and established heart or vascular disease, against 3.2% on placebo. The heart-event numbers are less clear. Fewer events showed up on one measure and more on another, and neither difference was statistically significant.

TRIUMPH-3 is one of six Phase 3 trials Lilly has disclosed data from as of October 2026. It is the only one built around people who already have cardiovascular disease.

How TRIUMPH-3 was designed

It was a Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of once-weekly retatrutide. Lilly randomized 1,949 adults 1:1:2 to a 9 mg target dose, a 12 mg target dose or placebo, so about half of the people got placebo. The ClinicalTrials.gov record (NCT05882045) lists 1,946 as actual enrollment; Lilly's figure is the randomized count.

Everyone started at 2 mg and stepped up every 4 weeks. The 9 mg group went through 4 mg and 6 mg, and the 12 mg group added a 9 mg step. Everyone got lifestyle counseling. The primary endpoint was the percent change in body weight at week 80.

To get in, people needed a BMI of 35 or higher and established cardiovascular disease, defined in the registry as a prior heart attack, a prior stroke, or symptomatic peripheral artery disease. Type 2 diabetes was allowed but not required. The registry excludes anyone with a heart attack, stroke, coronary revascularization, unstable angina or heart failure hospitalization in the 90 days before screening, and anyone with type 1 diabetes, a history of pancreatitis, or personal or family medullary thyroid cancer or MEN-2. Participants averaged 111.4 kg (245.6 lb) and a BMI of 40.4 at the start.

The trial's job was weight. Heart events were tracked, but the registry lists weight as the primary outcome and lists no event endpoint among its secondary ones.

TRIUMPH 3 retatrutide weight results by dose

Both doses worked well, and 12 mg only edged out 9 mg. Subtract placebo and the gaps are 18.4 percentage points (9 mg) and 19.4 points (12 mg), our arithmetic from Lilly's figures.

These are efficacy-estimand results, meaning they describe what happened while people stayed on treatment. Lilly hasn't released the treatment-regimen estimand for TRIUMPH-3, which counts everyone as randomized and usually comes out smaller. For comparison with the other readouts, see retatrutide phase 3 results and the TRIUMPH-1 page.

On 12 mg, Lilly also reported average changes in triglycerides (down 37.0%), non-HDL cholesterol (down 16.5%), systolic blood pressure (down 9.3 mmHg), waist (down 7.5 in, 19.0 cm) and hsCRP, a marker of inflammation (down 51.2%). Lilly didn't give the placebo comparison for these in the release. Blood pressure and the wider condition are covered in retatrutide and heart health.

What TRIUMPH-3 showed about heart attacks and stroke

Lilly reported two measures of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). MACE-3 counts cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke. MACE-5 adds all-cause death, heart failure events and coronary revascularization to the list. Lilly said events happened less often than anticipated in both arms.

A hazard ratio of 1 means the two groups had events at the same rate. Below 1 favors retatrutide; above 1 favors placebo. The confidence interval is the range of true effects the data are compatible with. When it crosses 1, as all four do here, the trial can't tell a benefit from no effect from a small harm. A hazard ratio of 0.82 sounds like an 18% lower risk, but an interval running from 0.55 to 1.22 includes a 22% higher one.

The pooled arms are roughly the same size, so 44 events against 52 works out to something like 4.5% against 5.3% of people. That is our rough arithmetic, and only Lilly's full data can confirm it. The on-treatment rows exclude events that happened more than 35 days after someone stopped the drug. Lilly's page flags them as not pre-specified, which means they were chosen after the fact and carry less weight.

Our read: the numbers don't show harm and don't show benefit. They are too few events from a trial run for 80 weeks, and the MACE-3 direction (27 against 23) goes the opposite way from MACE-5. Treat TRIUMPH-3 as a weight and risk-factor result, not as proof of fewer heart attacks.

The trial built to answer that is TRIUMPH-Outcomes (NCT06383390), an event-driven study in about 10,000 people aged 45 or older with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or chronic kidney disease, running about 248 weeks. ClinicalTrials.gov lists primary completion as February 2029 (estimated) and records the status as active, not recruiting.

Heart rate and TRIUMPH-3

Lilly's release and its medical information page give no heart rate figure for TRIUMPH-3, and we couldn't find one elsewhere. That matters more here than in other trials, because every participant has established heart or vascular disease. Heart rate data for retatrutide so far come from earlier trials, and the heart rate page covers what they showed and how it compares with tirzepatide and semaglutide. Ask your cardiologist about it before assuming a trial in this group answers it for you.

Side effects and stopping rates in TRIUMPH-3

Stomach effects led. Lilly called the dysesthesia and urinary tract infection events generally mild to moderate, with most resolving during treatment, and gave no severity description for the others.

About 1 in 7 people (13.5%) on 12 mg stopped treatment because of side effects, against about 1 in 21 (4.8%) on placebo. On 9 mg it was 9.8%. The 12 mg group stopped more often, even though it lost only one point more weight than the 9 mg group. In a population that already has heart disease and can't afford dehydration from bad diarrhea, that gap is worth bringing to a doctor.

Hyperglycemia was reported less often on retatrutide (3.9% and 3.1%) than on placebo (13.4%); some participants had type 2 diabetes, and Lilly didn't break the numbers out by diabetes status. Lilly didn't report the serious adverse event rate, the number of deaths, or heart rhythm events in what we could read. For more on the common effects, see retatrutide side effects.

Is TRIUMPH-3 published?

No. As of October 31, 2026, a Europe PMC title search finds no TRIUMPH-3 paper, while TRIUMPH-1 appeared in NEJM and TRIUMPH-2 in The Lancet. ClinicalTrials.gov shows the trial as completed on May 14, 2026, with no results posted. Everything above comes from Lilly's own release and Lilly Medical's answer page, so it is topline data that hasn't been through peer review.

Lilly said detailed results will be presented at future medical meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals. It named no meeting or journal. The paper is where you'd expect the numbers this page is missing: serious adverse events, heart rate, the treatment-regimen estimand and a breakdown by diabetes status.

What this means if you have heart disease

Retatrutide is investigational, and no approved version exists anywhere. The only legitimate routes to it are clinical trials, which the trials hub explains. Anything sold online as retatrutide is not Lilly's product, and with a cardiac history, a vial of unknown dose and purity is a bigger gamble; the retatrutide for sale page explains what is actually out there and why Lilly says it can't be legally sold for human use.

If you take blood thinners, blood pressure medicines or diabetes drugs, ask your prescriber how weight loss of this size could change your doses. Approved options such as tirzepatide and semaglutide have their own heart data, which is class evidence, not retatrutide data.