Novo Nordisk confident of amycretin obesity drug launch this decade

NOVO Nordisk’s head of development on Friday (Mar 8) told Reuters he was very comfortable the drugmaker would be able to launch the pill version of its experimental weight loss drug amycretin this decade.

“I never commit to timelines but I would be very comfortable to say at the very least within this decade,” Martin Holst Lange said.

Novo’s share price soared on Thursday when the company told investors a Phase I trial of the pill version of amycretin showed participants lost 13.1 per cent of their weight after 12 weeks, a bigger reduction than from its wildly popular Wegovy.

It expects both its new experimental obesity drugs cagrisema and amycretin to have higher efficacy in terms of weight-loss than Wegovy.

Lange told Reuters on Friday that it “would be a likely scenario” that the new drugs would have similar cardiac benefits as Wegovy.

Novo in August said a large study had shown Wegovy also had a clear cardiovascular benefit, boosting the company’s hopes of moving beyond its image as a lifestyle drug.

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Those results have led to a debate over whether the long-term medical benefits of weight-loss drugs are enough to reduce the overall burden on healthcare systems and the cost of treating heart disease in overweight and obese people.

Novo Nordisk hopes to advance the development of amycretin in its oral and injectable form simultaneously, Lange said. REUTERS