Obesity
In its latest biopharma pipeline report, Deloitte warned that the growing importance of a small pool of potential mega-blockbusters raises the risk of “significant value destruction from a single program failure.”
Amgen has launched a late-stage program to test the feasibility of switching patients from weekly GLP-1 injections to its own investigational obesity asset MariTide, which could open up monthly or more infrequent dosing schedules.
Foundayo became available on April 9 and has already reached 20,000 patients as Eli Lilly builds its marketing machine for the weight loss pill.
Amylin drugs have become the next big thing in obesity. Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, understandably, thinks his rivals don’t have a chance for one key reason.
Analysts will be watching as a generic version of semaglutide—marketed by Novo Nordisk as Wegovy for weight loss—launches in Canada as a test case for future price erosion in the U.S.
Topline Phase 3 results of survodutide—licensed to Boehringer Ingelheim from Zealand Pharma—are more comparable to Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy than to Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, William Blair analysts said on Tuesday.
Roche and Zealand Pharma announced last month that their amylin analog petrelintide elicited a 9% placebo-controlled weight reduction at 42 weeks—falling far below analyst and investor expectations.
Two of the biggest insurance providers have expressed reluctance to participate in the government’s BALANCE program that would have made GLP-1 drugs more affordable to patients.
While Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill reached more than 3,000 patients in its first week on the market, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said a direct comparison of the two figures could be misleading given the shorter data collection time for Foundayo.
Obesity-focused Kailera Therapeutics debuted on the Nasdaq Friday after raising a record $625 million, beating Moderna’s $600 million from 2018.
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