By Puyaan Singh
London: Amgen will test its obesity drug candidate in patients at risk of weight-related conditions such as heart, liver and kidney diseases in its late-stage trial, the company’s CEO Robert Bradway said on Wednesday.
California-based Amgen’s plan to test obesity drug MariTide for other conditions comes as its peers, such as Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, test their obesity medications to treat different diseases.
Lilly is testing its obesity drug, Zepbound, in patients with heart failure and chronic kidney disease, while Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy was approved to lower major heart risks and strokes.
Some analysts have said the market for new weight-loss drugs could exceed $150 billion by the early 2030s.
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley healthcare conference, Bradway described MariTide as a next-generation obesity drug due to its different mechanism of action and less frequent dosing compared to blockbuster medicines such as Zepbound and Wegovy, which require weekly-dosing.
“Our medicine is likely to be administered monthly or less frequently than that, so that means we’re giving a quarter of the number of injections as the two competitors that are on the market now, each month,” he said.
Lilly and Novo have been struggling to produce enough of their obesity medications to meet the soaring demand, though Lilly ramped up its manufacturing in the last quarter.
“Some of their supply challenge is a function of the number of injections they’re having to provide. We start with the benefit of doing a quarter of what they’re looking to do,” Bradway said.
The company had said in August it expects to have initial data from a mid-stage trial of MariTide late this year. (Reporting by Puyaan Singh; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
