Source: Zhitong Finance
Amgen's CEO said he was “very encouraged” by the initial findings of the company's experimental weight loss drug MariTide, which boosted the company's stock price.
$Amgen (AMGN.US)$It said on Thursday that the company is very encouraged after completing a mid-term analysis of the MariTide mid-term study. If approved, the drug will compete with Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound.
CEO Robert Bradway said in a conference call with investors: “We are aware of the huge interest people have in obesity. We are confident in MariTide's differentiated image and believe it will address important unmet healthcare needs.”
Driven by this news, Amgen's stock price rose more than 14% before the US market on Friday. After the opening of the US stock market, Amgen rose more than 15% at one point. If the increase remains the same, Amgen will welcome its biggest increase since July 2009.
Due to positive developments in diet pills, Amgen has become a potential competitor to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, and these two companies currently dominate the weight loss market. After Eli Lilly raised its annual forecast this week, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Shah said that demand for anti-obesity drugs such as Zepbound and Wegovy is so strong that the agency's estimate of $80 billion in annual sales by 2030 now seems too conservative.
Amgen did not provide any details on actual data from its trial, but confirmed in its first-quarter earnings report that MariTide's phase 2 clinical data is expected to be released at the end of 2024, adding that the company is planning a phase 3 trial of the drug with multiple indications. Additionally, it has been reported that the company is also planning a phase 2 trial of MariTide to treat diabetes.
Is the competitive landscape changing?
After Amgen's CEO made these remarks, Novo Nordisk's stock price fell more than 3% before the market. As sales of the two drugs Wegovy and Ozempic soared, optimism drove Novo Nordisk's market capitalization above $500 billion, strengthening its position as Europe's highest listed company by market capitalization. The stock has more than tripled since the beginning of 2020.
Kepler Cheuvreux analyst David Evans said, “Amgen has made positive comments on Maritide's R&D, and Novo Nordisk's stock price today definitely reflects some negative reactions.” But he added, “The continued negative reaction to concerns about performance and pricing yesterday may also be a small part of the reason for today's stock price trend.”
MariTide is excited about the market because it is used less frequently than Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly's popular treatments. According to a small early study published in February in the journal Nature Metabolism (Nature Metabolism), patients who took the drug once a month lost 14.5% of their weight in 12 weeks. Research results showed that some people maintained weight loss effects for as long as 150 days after discontinuing the drug.
Also, Amgen's medications are different from Wegovy or Zepbound. MariTide is a so-called antibody-drug conjugate, a molecule more commonly used to target cancer treatments. One part of the drug is an antibody that blocks GIP receptors, while the other part is two polypeptides that mimic an intestinal hormone called GLP-1. The antibody component of this drug allows it to stay in the body longer than weekly weight loss injections.
Although MariTide is still in the mid-stage research phase and has not yet submitted regulatory approval, the company is already investing in building production capacity for the drug. Bradway said in a conference call that Amgen is planning to conduct post-stage research on obesity, obesity-related diseases, and diabetes. This medication may be given by injection through a hand-held autoinjector for monthly use.
Jay Bradner, head of R&D at Amgen, also said during the conference call that the company will focus on MariTide and stop developing AMG 786, another early-stage drug.