Novo Nordisk Next-gen Shot Shows 22% Weight Loss in Early Results

(Reuters) – One of Novo Nordisk’s next-generation obesity shots to follow up on the success of Wegovy helped patients lose 22% of their weight in 36 weeks, according to early-stage trial results on Friday, boosting the drugmaker’s shares.

The weight loss, which compared with a decline of 2% in a placebo group, was seen in overweight or obese trial participants on weekly injections of drug candidate amycretin, which has a dual mode of action that the drugmaker is separately testing in pill form.

Shares in Denmark’s Novo jumped as much as 13% to a one-month high of 656.9 crowns. Shares in domestic rival Zealand Pharma, which is testing a similar drug, rose 4.1%, while those of U.S. competitor Eli Lilly were down 1.2% in premarket trade.

Like Wegovy, amycretin mimics the gut hormone GLP-1, but it also mimics the effect of a hunger-suppressing pancreatic hormone called amylin.

Novo is under pressure to boost its development credentials in its rivalry with Zepbound-maker Eli Lilly after a late-stage trial read-out on another next-generation obesity drug known as CagriSema proved a big disappointment for investors in December.

Over the longer term, Novo’s Wegovy business faces a challenge from Zepbound, also known as Mounjaro, which has been shown to be the more effective obesity drug in direct comparison.

Jyske Bank analyst Henrik Hallengreen Laustsen described the data as strong.

“It’s still early and not many patients, but it can give some hope that you have a product that can take over from Wegovy and that can compete to a great extent,” Laustsen told Reuters.

“Maybe this can help regain some faith in Novo’s pipeline,” he added.

Earlier last year, a daily-pill version of Novo’s amycretin was shown to lead to 13.1% weight loss after just 12 weeks, boosting its shares.

Novo said in September it planned to decide on further studies for amycretin after data from the trial with the injectable version.

The company said on Friday, however, that results on weekly amycretin shots did not take into account the effect of trial participants interrupting or stopping their treatment course.

As is the norm for early-stage trials, the main goal was to measure safety and Novo said side effects were consistent with those seen in widely-used GLP-1 therapies.

“The most common adverse events with amycretin were gastrointestinal and the vast majority were mild to moderate in severity,” it added.

But on efficacy, comparison with previous data indicates that injected amycretin could become a strong contender. A Lilly-sponsored trial showed last month that Zepbound helped patients lose an average of 20.2% of their weight after 72 weeks, compared to 13.7% for a group treated with Wegovy.

In December, Novo said its CagriSema drug, which is far more advanced in development than amycretin, led to 22.7% weight loss after 68 weeks, below the 25% the company had expected.

CagriSema needs to be given in a complex injection that mixes two peptides. Amycretin has the same dual mode of action – GLP-1 plus amylin – but in a single molecule.

Other companies working in early stages with amylin, which is believed to better preserve lean mass than GLP-1-based drugs, include AstraZeneca and Zealand Pharma.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Stine Jacobsen. Editing by Louise Rasmussen and Mark Potter)