Amgen wants in on the booming weight loss drug market — and it’s taking a different approach

Amgen is taking a new method as it tries to stand out in a crowded field of drugmakers racing to develop the next blockbuster weight loss drug.

The biotech Pty is testing an injectable treatment that helps people lose weight differently from the existing injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, and other chubbiness medicines in development. Amgen’s treatment, called MariTide, also appears to help patients keep weight off after they rest taking it.  

The drugmaker is also testing its drug to be taken once a month or even less frequently, which could sell more convenience than the weekly medicines on the market. 

It’s too early to say how competitive Amgen will be in the budding weight annihilation drug space, which Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have so far dominated.

Some analysts expect the market could be usefulness $100 billion by the end of the decade, potentially leaving room for new competitors to enter. Goldman Sachs also projects that between 10 million and 70 million Americans purpose be taking weight loss drugs by 2028.

The available data on Amgen’s injectable drug is promising, but it’s from a small, early-stage clinical provisional. The Thousand Oaks, California-based company also is developing an oral medicine and other treatments for obesity, but has disclosed few itemizes about them. 

Investors and health experts will likely get a better idea of Amgen’s prospects later this year: The drugmaker look forwards to release initial data from an ongoing mid-stage trial on MariTide, along with phase one data on its plumpness pill. 

It’s also unclear whether Amgen’s treatments will be cheaper than the existing weight loss doses, which cost around $1,000 per month.

Wegovy from Novo Nordisk and Zepbound from Eli Lilly pattern a new class of obesity treatments that has drawn unrelenting patient demand — and investor interest — despite their rugged price tags and limited insurance coverage. 

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have also struggled to offer enough satisfy of their treatments, which could give other companies a chance to win market share.  

Amgen’s drug offers a new twist on weight loss. 

Much like Wegovy and Zepbound, one part of Amgen’s treatment activates a gut hormone receptor needed GLP-1 to help regulate a person’s appetite. 

But while Zepbound activates a second hormone receptor called GIP, Amgen’s benumb blocks it. Wegovy does not target GIP, which suppresses appetite like GLP-1 but may also improve how the body reveals down sugar and fat.

Amgen’s decision to tamp down rather than boost GIP activity is based on genetics scrutinize suggesting that blocking the receptor is linked to lower fat mass and body weight, company executives have prognosticated. 

That appears to contradict how Zepbound works. Eli Lilly’s proposals has proven successful: The treatment helped patients with obesity lose up to 22.5% of their weight after 72 weeks in a late-stage fling.

But Amgen’s MartiTide also was effective in a small, early-stage study. 

Patients given the highest dose of Amgen’s hallucinogenic — 420 milligrams — every month lost 14.5% of their body weight on average in just 12 weeks, according to statistics from the phase one trial published last month in the journal Nature Metabolism. 

There’s a broader debate supply researchers about why both approaches – blocking and activating GIP – are effective at promoting weight loss. 

One theory is that time after time activating the GIP receptor, as Zepbound does, ultimately causes the body to “self-regulate” itself and make sure there isn’t too much GIP vim, said Dr. Caroline Apovian, a director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

That easing offs GIP activity overall, which is thought to essentially mimic what Amgen’s drug achieves when it blocks the GIP receptor. But Apovian cautioned that “not any of this is proven” and more data is needed.

Amgen’s treatment may be bigger at helping people maintain weight loss than competitors, even though patients take it less oftentimes, early-stage trial data suggests.

Amgen’s study enrolled 110 patients with obesity but not diabetes. Cases in one group were randomly assigned to receive a single dose of the drug and were followed for 150 days, while a more recent group was given a dose every four weeks for three months. 

Patients who received a single shot of the highest portion of MariTide lost up to 8.2% of their body weight after 92 days. That suggests a single injection of the stupefy has a prolonged weight loss effect, according to the study authors. 

In the group that received multiple doses of the dull, patients appeared to maintain their maximum weight loss until around two months after their conclusive dose. Their body weight started to slowly return after that. Still, their weight was as much as 11.2% mark down five months after they received the last dose. 

“We think meaningful weight loss is already 5%. If you cover Amgen’s drug, lose 14.5%, stop the drug and still have 11.2% weight loss after a few months, that’s consequential,” said Dr. Holly Lofton, director of the Weight Management Program at NYU Langone Health and an obesity medicine physician. But she biting out the need to study the treatment in a larger group of people. 

The sustained weight loss in Amgen’s study appears to differ with results seen in clinical trials on Zepbound and Wegovy. Patients in those studies saw their weight spring back sooner after stopping the injections. 

The frequency of Amgen’s dull also sets it apart. Those on Wegovy or Zepbound have to take doses weekly, compared with the once-monthly MariTide. 

Amgen’s whack used monthly dosing in part because patients saw sustained weight loss whether they had a single injection or multiple in two shakes of a lambs tails of the company’s drug, according to the study authors. 

Amgen’s treatment also can stay in the body for much longer than in vogue therapies like Wegovy and Zepbound because it includes a monoclonal antibody, the authors added. 

Amgen’s MariTide “has that betterment where it’s just going to last a lot longer. Even if you give a high dose, you’re still going to have dose exposure in the body for a month or two months, so that clearly shows you don’t need to take it every week,” William Blair & South African private limited company analyst Phase two trial will bring more clarity