SLEEP 2026 | Ongoing research and emerging approaches to the treatment of sleep apnea

There are a lot of ongoing trials, both in pharmacology and in devices, for treatment of sleep apnea. It’s an exciting time. There are many other weight loss drugs that are being looked at. So retatrutide is a GLP-1 with GIP with glucagon agonist. The Triumph 1 and Triumph 2 results were announced at the American Diabetes Association last week. There are some sleep apnea studies in the Triumph studies as well, but those results are not yet publicly available. In addition, there’s an oral GLP-1 called orforglipron, and there’s a study called Attain OSA, which should read out in the next few months as well. So we don’t know the results of that as yet, but oral options to facilitate weight loss and treatment of sleep apnea are currently being studied. Other treatment approaches pharmacologically for sleep apnea are ongoing as well. Jan Hedner from Sweden has a molecule called sulthiame, which is a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. He had a paper in The Lancet in 2025 that looked promising, and I believe there are further studies looking into that. In addition, there’s a drug combination of AD109. That’s atomoxetine with oxybutynin or its (R)-enantiomer. And the Phase III study results of that were announced at the American College of Chest Physicians in 2025. And during the recent American Thoracic Society meeting, one of the Phase III studies by Pat Stroller was announced as well. What they’re seeing there is about a 3.3 event per hour improvement in the apnea-hypopnea index. The placebo got slightly worse by 0.7, and so the placebo-adjusted improvement in the apnea-hypopnea index is about four events per hour. They did not see symptomatic improvements compared to placebo, but there was some regression in the mean where both the placebo and the drug were improving. There was a pre-specified subgroup of the most symptomatic patients, and those did seem to improve with the drug. There were some improvements in snoring and hypoxic burden in the secondary outcomes as well. So that’s being sent to the FDA. The AHI improvements are somewhat modest, but we’ll see if the FDA approves it and what comes of that. There are other approaches to sleep apnea treatment, which are ongoing as well, including various kinds of hypoglossal nerve stimulation, being looked at and other device-type strategies.

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