Novo, searching for a spark, plans late-stage trials for amylin drug

Dive Brief:

• Novo Nordisk is planning Phase 3 clinical trials for a obesity drug combination called amycretin, adding another emerging weight-loss medicine to the list of prospects it has in advanced testing.
• The Danish drugmaker said Thursday the trials could begin in early 2026, and will test both an injectable and an oral formulation. In a Phase 2 trial, amycretin helped people with obesity lose up to 22% of their body weight over 36 weeks, topping Novo’s marketed medication Wegovy as well as Eli Lilly’s rival Zepbound.
• Amycretin targets GLP-1, as Wegovy does, but also a separate metabolic hormone called amylin that has drawn increasing interest from drugmakers. Earlier this week, shares of Metsera climbed by double digits after the biotechnology company reported promising Phase 1 data for an amylin-targeting agent.

Dive Insight:

Though Novo is a pioneer in the development of in-demand obesity medicines, it currently finds itself on the defensive. Zepbound’s fast launch has eroded Wegovy’s market share, and Novo’s successor medicine, named cagrisema, disappointed in a Phase 3 trial. Novo’s share price has fallen more than 40% over the last year, and it announced last month that longtime CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen would step down. 

But amycretin offers Novo a chance to rebound. The drug is different from cagrisema, which also targets GLP-1 and amylin, but is two separate medicines contained in a dual-chamber injector pen. Amycretin, by comparison, is a single molecule, and its amylin-targeting component looks more potent, wrote Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Prakhar Agrawal. 

Novo also has other prospects on the way. An oral form of Wegovy is currently being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, and a higher dose of the injectable version is in Phase 3 testing. Novo is also planning further testing of cagrisema to see whether it can spur greater weight loss through a more tolerable dosing regimen before it’s submitted to regulators in 2026.

Lilly is speeding ahead with newer medications too, however. The company has two new drugs in Phase 3 development, including a GLP-1 pill that’s already succeeded in a late-stage testing in diabetes and an amylin-targeting medicine in Phase 2.

Amylin drugs are on the radars of other drugmakers, too. Roche spent more than $1 billion for a therapy being developed by Zealand Pharma, while AbbVie gained one through a deal with Denmark-based Gubra that could be worth close to $2 billion.

This post has been syndicated from a third-party source. View the original article here.