A new weight loss pill outperformed Novo Nordisk's version
Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) released new clinical trial data on Sunday for its experimental weight-loss drugs, which include a highly anticipated oral pill.
The San Diego-based company’s stock surged over 6% during pre-market trading on Monday. It has since fallen about 5% from its closing price on Friday.
This marks the latest development in the competitive race among pharmaceutical companies to introduce new weight-loss drug alternatives to current market leaders like Wegovy, Zepbound, and Ozempic.
Viking Therapeutics shared on Sunday the latest data of its two clinical trials testing an injection and pill versions of its experimental weight-loss treatment VK2735 at the industry conference Obesity Week in San Antonio, Texas.
The company reported that in a small phase 1 clinical study, patients who took a daily 100mg dose of Viking’s weight-loss pill lost an average of up to 6.8% of their body weight over 28 days when adjusted for those taking a placebo.
William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh noted on Monday that Viking’s results surpassed Wall Street expectations and outperformed those of Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) experimental weight-loss pill, amycretin.
“Notably, the 100 mg dose appears to be outpacing the 100 mg dose of amycretin, which achieved about a 5% placebo-adjusted weight loss in four weeks,” Hsieh wrote.
Novo Nordisk stock fell nearly 2% on Monday morning.
In a phase 2 trial of the same drug administered as a weekly injection, patients experienced an average weight loss of 14.7% over 13 weeks.
For comparison, patients taking the highest dose of Eli Lilly’s (LLY) Zepbound lost over 20% of their weight after 72 weeks during a clinical trial.
The race for a weight-loss pill
After the launch of the diabetes medication Ozempic in 2017, the demand for weight-loss drugs has skyrocketed in recent years.
Fervent demand for Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic over the last year had the company racing to keep up with supply. The Denmark-based company’s revenue even buoyed the nation’s GDP in 2023.
Several pharmaceutical companies are now chasing the hype, working to introduce new drugs to get in on the demand. In addition to Viking Therapeutics, Regeneron, Amgen, Pfizer, and Zealand Pharma are all developing weight-loss drugs.
Unsatisfied with their own success, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are also developing even more powerful weight-loss drugs.
The majority of these companies are also working to introduce weight-loss pills. Weight-loss drugs that already on the market are administered as once-weekly injections. But a pill could help with current supply constraints and open the market to patients hesitant to taking injections.
