AstraZeneca Says Experimental Obesity Pill Safe in Early-stage Trial

LONDON (Reuters) -AstraZeneca said on Monday its experimental weight-loss pill, licensed a year ago from China’s Eccogene for up to $2 billion, was safe and tolerable in an early-stage trial, with side effects consistent with the GLP-1 drug class.

Sharon Barr, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals R&D, said AstraZeneca had progressed the drug into Phase II clinical trials based on the data from Phase I, which assessed its safety and tolerability in 72 participants who were either healthy, non-obese volunteers or people with type 2 diabetes.

AstraZeneca’s shares rose as much as 2.9% after the data release, before paring gains. At 1720 GMT they were up 0.2%.

When AstraZeneca announced it had licensed the once-daily pill, called AZD5004, it said it believed the treatment could cause fewer side effects than injectable treatments such Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.

One of the Phase II trials of the drug, will focus on reduction in body weight in obese and overweight participants and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, Barr said.

“We saw a dose-dependent increase in nausea and vomiting consistent with molecules in this class,” Barr told a briefing, referring to GLP-1 receptor agonists, which slow digestion and reduce hunger. Zepbound and Wegovy are both from this class.

There were no serious adverse events reported, she said.

CEO Pascal Soriot acknowledged after the Eccogene deal that AstraZeneca was “a few years behind” Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly who were first to market with highly effective obesity drugs.

The drugmaker is now bullish for its obesity business.

Its weight-loss pill compares favourably to others in clinical development by rival companies because it is a small molecule that can be combined with other small molecule drugs, said Barr, which is important because more than 60% of obese and overweight people have one or more other medical conditions.

The pill can be taken with or without food, Barr added, citing data released from an early-stage trial of 14 patients.

AstraZeneca also released data from Phase I trials of its other leading experimental obesity drugs, which are injected.

One, AZD6234, targets a pancreas hormone called amylin that affects hunger. Another, called AZD9550, targets the gut hormone GLP-1 and a second obesity-related hormone called glucagon.

Trials showed both were safe and tolerable, AstraZeneca said, adding it had begun Phase II trials in overweight and obese patients for AZD6234 and expects to complete in 2026. It will start them for AZD9550 in the next six months.

Meanwhile, Viking Therapeutics on Monday published results from an early-stage trial of its oral obesity treatment that analysts said compared well to rivals in development.

Its shares rose briefly by as much as 9% before reversing course and was down about 11% at 1720 GMT.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Editing by Jan Harvey, Susan Fenton and Alexander Smith)