Amgen's shares rose greater than 12% on Friday after the drugmaker reported positive early data on its experimental weight-loss injection.
This fueled investor concerns about recent competition within the fast-growing weight-loss drug industry and caused shares of current obesity players, Novo Nordisk And Eli Lilly, lower on Friday. Shares of Eli Lilly fell nearly 3%, while U.S.-traded shares of Novo Nordisk fell greater than 1%.
Novo Nordisk shares were already under pressure on Thursday after sales of its blockbuster weight reduction drug Wegovy missed analysts' first-quarter estimates as a consequence of lower prices.
During a first-quarter earnings conference call Thursday, Amgen CEO Bob Bradway said he was “very encouraged” by early results from a mid-term study of the corporate's obesity shot, MariTide. Investors have been focused on that drug and the remainder of Amgen's weight-loss drug pipeline as the corporate races against several other drugmakers to enter the booming market.
“We are confident in MariTide's differentiated profile and believe it will address important unmet medical needs,” Bradway said in the course of the call.
Amgen didn’t provide specific data, but its chief scientific officer Jay Bradner said patient dropouts haven’t been an issue. He said Amgen is heading in the right direction to publish the trial's initial data in late 2024 and can be planning late-stage trials in patients with obesity, obesity-related diseases and diabetes.
Bradway also highlighted the potential competitive benefits of injecting patients once a month and even less often using a hand-held auto-injector. That could offer much more convenience than the weekly injections in the marketplace, Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound.
“While there has been significant debate about the potential efficacy and safety of MariTide since the initial publication of Phase I data in 2022, we have become more confident that the therapy has the potential to be significantly different from other therapies in development differ, particularly with regard to treatment intervals,” William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note on Friday, adding that the corporate raised its rating on Amgen shares to “outperform.”
Specifically, Amgen said it’s scrapping its experimental oral obesity drug. But this development just isn’t as vital because the MariTide update, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a research note on Thursday.
Amgen's Bradway said the corporate has begun ramping up production for MariTide. That's a signal that the corporate is preparing to supply enough quantities of the drug – a serious problem that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have struggled with over the past 12 months and a half.
Still, investors were pleased with Eli Lilly on Tuesday after the corporate reassured them that it could overcome ongoing supply shortages for its popular drugs. Eli Lilly raised its full-year forecast partially on optimism about increased production of Zepbound, its diabetes injection Mounjaro and similar drugs for the remainder of the 12 months.
Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites which can be either “ramped up or under construction,” including two sites in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, together with a seventh, recently acquired site, executives said during a conference call to the outcomes.
Meanwhile, investors were less impressed with Novo Nordisk on Thursday.
Wegovy's revenue nearly doubled in the primary quarter, but fell wanting analysts' expectations. This suggests that Novo Nordisk is struggling to fulfill demand for the treatment.
However, Novo Nordisk also pointed to strong competition from Eli Lilly's Zepbound, which has upset the pricing dynamics for Wegovy within the US
“Net prices” for Wegovy and Ozempic will likely be lower within the U.S. all year long as a consequence of “increasing volume and increasing competition,” Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said Thursday on a first-quarter earnings call.
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