Viking Experimental Obesity Pill Shows Promise in Study
Patients shed 6.8% body weight compared to placebo in 28 days
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/viking-experimental-obesity-pill-shows-promise-in-early-study?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=XLA0GJqR
By Madison Muller
November 3, 2024 at 8:32 PM EST
Updated on November 3, 2024 at 9:08 PM EST
Viking Therapeutics Inc. said higher doses of its experimental pill increased patients' weight loss beyond earlier formulations, strengthening its case to eventually compete with blockbuster shots from Novo Nordisk A/S and Eli Lilly & Co.
People who took 100-milligram doses of Viking's VK2735 lost an average of 8.2% of their body weight after 28 days in an early-stage study, according to a company presentation at the ObesityWeek meeting Sunday in San Antonio. Patients lost 6.8% of their body weight over the same period in comparison with those who took a placebo.
Viking's shares have quadrupled this year as investors have bet on the company's chances of cracking a market for obesity medications that's estimated to hit $130 billion by the end of the decade. Easy-to-administer pills are expected to have a big impact as an alternative to injections that now dominate the market.
"Efficacy of the drug looks good, and the safety is intact," Michael Shah, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said in an interview.
There were no discontinuations of the drug at the highest dose, Viking said in the presentation. There were 92 people in the study taking a variety of dose levels, with 100 milligrams the highest. The most common side effects were constipation, nausea and vomiting, similar to other obesity drugs.
Lilly and Novo already have pills in the works, as well as drugmakers including Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc.
Lilly's oral drug, orforglipron, produced an average loss of about 15% of body weight in 36 weeks when given daily at the highest dose to adults with obesity, according to a mid-stage study published last year. A pill containing semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo's Wegovy, produced similar results in a late-stage study that was almost twice as long.
(Updates with other pill efforts in final two paragraphs.)