Amgen‘s shares rose more than 12% on Friday after the drugmaker reported positive early data on its experimental weight-loss injection.
This fueled investor concerns about new competition in the fast-growing weight-loss drug industry and caused shares of current obesity players, Novo Nordisk And Eli Lilly, lower on Friday. Shares of Eli Lilly fell nearly 3%, while U.S.-traded shares of Novo Nordisk fell more than 1%.
Novo Nordisk shares were already under pressure on Thursday after sales of its blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy missed analysts’ first-quarter estimates due to lower prices.
During a first-quarter earnings conference call Thursday, Amgen CEO Bob Bradway said he was “very encouraged” by early results from a mid-term study of the company’s obesity shot, MariTide. Investors have been focused on that drug and the rest of Amgen’s weight-loss drug pipeline as the company races against several other drugmakers to enter the booming market.
“We are confident in MariTide’s differentiated profile and believe it will address important unmet medical needs,” Bradway said during the call.
Amgen did not provide specific data, but its chief scientific officer Jay Bradner said patient dropouts have not been a problem. He said Amgen is on track to publish the trial’s initial data in late 2024 and is also planning late-stage trials in patients with obesity, obesity-related diseases and diabetes.
Bradway also highlighted the potential competitive advantages of injecting patients once a month or even less frequently using a hand-held auto-injector. That could offer far more convenience than the weekly injections on the market, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
“While there has been significant debate about the potential efficacy and safety of MariTide since the initial publication of Phase I data in 2022, we have become more confident that the therapy has the potential to be significantly different from other therapies in development differ, particularly with regard to treatment intervals,” William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note on Friday, adding that the company raised its rating on Amgen shares to “outperform.”
Notably, Amgen announced that it is phasing out its experimental oral obesity drug. But this development is not as important as the MariTide update, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a research note on Thursday.
Amgen’s Bradway said the company has begun ramping up production for MariTide. That’s a signal that the company is preparing to produce enough quantities of the drug – a major problem that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have struggled with over the past year and a half.
Still, investors were pleased with Eli Lilly on Tuesday after the company reassured them that it could overcome ongoing supply shortages for its popular drugs. Eli Lilly raised its full-year forecast in part on optimism about increased production of Zepbound, its diabetes injection Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.
Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites that are either “ramped up or under construction,” including two sites in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, along with a seventh, recently acquired site, executives said during a conference call to the results.
Meanwhile, investors were less impressed with Novo Nordisk on Thursday.
Wegovy’s revenue nearly doubled in the first quarter, but fell short of analysts’ expectations. This suggests that Novo Nordisk is struggling to meet demand for the treatment.
However, Novo Nordisk also pointed to strong competition from Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, which has upset the pricing dynamics for Wegovy in the US
“Net prices” for Wegovy and Ozempic will be lower in the U.S. throughout the year due to “increasing volume and increasing competition,” Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said Thursday on a first-quarter earnings call.
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2024-05-03 17:43:34
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