Anti-obesity drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have a huge lead on their competition, but given the vast and valuable market, rivals are still eager to join the race. Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham has been very bullish about the opportunity, which he calls “unprecedented” given the prevalence of obesity and the huge interest investors have shown in this category so far. Meacham was among the first to predict the category could hit $100 billion in peak sales, but now many analysts anticipate the market could be even larger . According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 42% of U.S. adults have obesity, a costly condition that’s associated with other wide array of other medical conditions, including heart disease, stroke and cancer. Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, estimates nearly 800 million people worldwide have obesity. Competition is coming This week, both Zealand Pharma and Viking Therapeutics showed the competition is coming as they reported encouraging progress from their experimental therapies in this broad category, which sent their stocks soaring on the news. Zealand shares popped 35% on Monday after upbeat results for its liver disease treatment survodutide. The treatment, which has a fast-track designation from the Food and Drug Administration, also is being studied for obesity. VKTX YTD mountain Viking shares year to date Then, Viking shares more than doubled in trading on Tuesday, putting the stock on pace to report a more than 300% year-to-date gain, after the company said its GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist VK2735 hit all its primary goals in a phase 2 clinical trial. Patients enrolled in the study lost about 13% of their weight after 13 weeks, which is very competitive with other drugs in this class. Perhaps even more encouraging, there weren’t any signs that weight loss was plateauing, and the drug was well-tolerated with few patients discontinuing treatment. At the same time, shares of both Novo and…
2024-02-27 15:09:00
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