Novo Nordisk touted more data for its oral amycretin, noting that subjects had not reached a plateau in their weight loss at the end of the early-stage trial.
The Danish company previously teased amycretin data in March, noting that study participants saw a body weight reduction of 13.1%.
And now, according to the abstract at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), participants on the highest dose of two 50 mg pills a day experienced a 13.1% body weight drop at 12 weeks in contrast with 1.1% among those taking placebo. Those on a single 50 mg dose saw a 10.4% weight loss at about three months.
Study authors wrote that “the lack of weight loss plateauing indicates the possibility of achieving further weight reductions with extended treatment,” adding that larger and longer studies of the oral weight loss candidate are in the planning stages.
Martin Holst LangeMartin Holst Lange, Novo’s executive VP and head of development, told Endpoints News that it expects to potentially see around 25% weight loss with CagriSema — the company’s combo of semaglutide with the amylin analog cagrilintide — and at least a similar potential for amycretin.
The majority of adverse events in patients taking the amylin and GLP-1 receptor co-agonist were mild to moderate and were gastrointestinal in nature, such as nausea, vomiting and decreased appetite.
Jefferies analysts wrote in a Wednesday note that physicians at EASD “appear increasingly excited for amylin as both combination and monotherapy, in our view, with growing desire for alternative non-GLP-1 approaches for patients who lack efficacy on current therapies.”
Other major players that are also in the oral weight loss race include Eli Lilly with its GLP-1 orforglipron and Viking Therapeutics with an oral GLP-1/GIP dual agonist.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Martin Holst Lange.