Obesity Drug Achieves ~15% Weight Loss - Zealand Pharma-Boehringer Ingelheim Partnered Drug May Compete With Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly

Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma A/S ZLDPF announced that patients treated with BI 456906 achieved up to 14.9% weight loss after 46 weeks, using the planned maintenance dose. The data comes from 387 patients.

The phase 2 clinical trial evaluating the novel glucagon/GLP-1 receptor dual agonist BI 456906 in people living with obesity or overweight without type 2 diabetes met its primary endpoint. 

Full data will be presented at the 2023 American Diabetes Association's 83rd Scientific Sessions.

Paola Casarosa, head of therapeutic areas at Boehringer Ingelheim, told Reuters the partners are in discussion with regulators about the design of a planned follow-up trial in the third and last phase of testing.

The demand for weight-loss treatments such as Novo Nordisk A/S's NVO Wegovy, or potentially Eli Lilly And Co's LLY Mounjaro, could support as many as ten competing products with annual sales reaching up to $100 billion within a decade, mainly in the United States, industry executives and analysts said.

Lilly's tirzepatide reduced patients' weights by an average of 16%, 21.4%, and 22.5% at the respective doses, compared to just 2.4% on placebo in a study with over 2,500 participants.

A late-stage trial showed that Novo's Wegovy helped patients obtain a weight loss of about 15-17% over 68 weeks, depending on patient subgroups in the study.

Casarosa said the results could not be directly compared because of trial design and size differences.

UBS analyst Michael Leuchten noted the initial weight-loss readout was below that of Mounjaro and Phase 2 trials of another Novo drug candidate, CagriSema, but said a lower price could pave the way into a profitable market segment.

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