Weight loss
Wegovy is being made available to Chinese patients five months after its approval in the country. Novo will sell the medicine for about $193.27 for a one-month supply.
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Olivia Brayer found supplementary bone mineral density data for Amgen’s obesity candidate MariTide that could point to a potentially greater fracture risk than previously revealed, but some other analysts view the findings as a nonissue.
With Novo Holdings’ $16.5 billion buyout of Catalent being reviewed by regulators, what work the contract drug manufacturer may or may not be performing for Eli Lilly remains a point of contention.
Novo Nordisk’s total revenue in the third quarter missed analysts’ expectations but sales of weight loss drug Wegovy exceeded the consensus forecast. Still, the Danish drugmaker narrowed its full-year guidance for revenue and operating profit.
While expected and seen as largely incremental, Jefferies analyst Peter Welford in a Tuesday note to investors said the detailed data for three early-stage assets support moving them into Phase IIb studies and creates a “foothold” for AstraZeneca in the weight loss space.
Jefferies analyst Roger Song in an investor note said that Viking Therapeutics’ readout for its investigational therapy VK2735 exceeded expectations, with “class-leading” weight loss. Patients on 100-miligram doses of the pill lost 8.2% of their body weight after 28 days.
In part 1 of the pivotal ESSENCE trial, Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug Wegovy demonstrated “statistically significant and superior improvement” in liver fibrosis in patients with metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis.
Lilly CEO Dave Ricks in Wednesday’s third-quarter earnings call acknowledged that the company is at the mercy of wholesaler stocking decisions.
While Amgen’s third-quarter financial results on Wednesday were “somewhat uneventful,” investors continue to be focused on the highly anticipated MariTide Phase II results slated for late 2024, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman.
Wednesday’s update to the regulator’s drug shortage database is good news for Novo Nordisk, which has struggled to keep up with demand for the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs.
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