Viking Therapeutics shares rise 16% after the pharmaceutical company moves its weight-loss injection into late-stage testing

Shares of Viking Therapeutics rose 16% in premarket trading on Thursday after the biotech company announced a day earlier plans to advance its experimental weight-loss injection into a complicated testing phase sooner than expected.

This brings the San Diego-based company one step closer to entering the extremely popular GLP-1 market, which analysts say is developing right into a 150 billion dollar market until the top of the last decade.

Viking is considered one of several small and enormous pharmaceutical corporations that need to compete on this area Novo Nordisk And Eli Lillywhose demand for GLP-1 antibodies for weight reduction and diabetes has skyrocketed within the last two years.

Shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly fell about 2 percent in premarket trading on Thursday.

Viking had previously stated that the corporate expected to start one other interim study of its weekly injection, called VK2735, after the corporate reported positive results from one other phase two study in late February.

But after the corporate received written feedback from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it decided to maneuver the injection directly right into a Phase 3 trial, CEO Brian Lian said during a conference call on Wednesday.

Lian said the corporate is preparing to satisfy with the FDA within the fourth quarter to debate the design and timing of this Phase 3 trial, with plans to initiate the study afterward.

The decision will likely shorten Viking's development timeline for the injection by a 12 months, BTIG analyst Justin Zelin said in a note Wednesday. Currently, analysts expect the drug to hit the market in 2029, Zelin said.

During the decision, Lian added that Viking plans to check VK2735 as a monthly injection in a future study, which could make the treatment a more convenient option than Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, each of that are taken once every week.

Viking Therapeutics' drug promotes weight reduction by targeting GLP-1 and one other hormone called GIP, the identical hormones targeted by Eli Lilly's Zepbound and its diabetes counterpart Mounjaro.

Patients who received the Viking injection weekly in a Phase 2 study lost as much as 14.7 percent of their body weight after 13 weeks, or 13.1 percent in comparison with placebo.

Viking can be developing an oral version of VK2735. This pill resulted in a weight reduction of three.3% in comparison with a placebo in an early study.