Amgen ditches experimental weight loss pills, switching to injections

Amgen said Thursday it would stop developing the experimental weight-loss drug and instead continue developing the shot and other products for obesity.

The announcement is a setback for Amgen, one of many drugmakers racing to enter the hot weight-loss drug market dominated by Novo Nordisk And Eli Lilly, which some analysts say could be worth $100 billion by the end of the decade. But the company has other opportunities to capture a piece of the market.

“Based on the records we’ve seen with [the oral drug], we will not pursue further development. Instead, in obesity, we are investing differently in MariTide and several preclinical assets,” Jay Bradner, Amgen’s chief scientific officer, said during today’s earnings call. Thursday.

Amgen is developing an injectable obesity treatment called MariTide, which is in mid-term testing in obese or overweight adults without diabetes. The company will release initial data from that study later this year, and Bradner said Amgen is “very pleased” with the results so far.

The company said it is working with regulators to plan a late-stage trial of the treatment. Amgen said Thursday it is also planning a phase two trial of the diabetes drug.

Amgen shares rose more than 10% in extended trading Thursday.

Amgen also has other drugs in development for weight management.

The drugmaker’s oral medication, called AMG-786, is the second weight loss drug to be discontinued in the past year.

Pfizer in December pulled its twice-daily version of its obesity drug, danugliron, after patients had difficulty tolerating the drug in a midterm trial. The company is currently developing a once-daily version of that drug.

Investors are focusing on Amgen’s pipeline of experimental weight-loss treatments. Amgen hopes to stand out from the crowd of potential players with a different approach.

The company’s experimental injection helps people lose weight differently than existing injections. Much like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, part of Amgen’s treatment activates a gut hormone receptor called GLP-1 to help regulate a person’s appetite.

But while Zepbound activates a second hormone receptor called GIP, Amgen’s drug blocks it. Wegovy does not target GIP, an appetite suppressant like GLP-1, but may also improve how the body breaks down sugar and fat.

Amgen’s injectable treatment also appears to help patients lose weight after they stop taking the drug based on some clinical trial data. The drugmaker is also testing its drug to be taken once a month or even less frequently, which could offer more convenience than weekly pills on the market.

According to patients given the highest dose of Amgen’s MariTide – 420 milligrams – per month, they lost an average of 14.5% of their body weight in just 12 weeks. data from phase one trial was published in February in the journal Nature Metabolism.