Amgen says obesity drug caused up to 20% weight loss after a year, with no plateau

Amgen on Tuesday said its experimental weight loss injection helped patients with obesity lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a critical mid-stage trial, as the company races to join the booming obesity drug market. 

The drug, MariTide, also helped patients with obesity and Type 2 diabetes lose up to 17% of their weight after a year. The company said it did not observe a plateau in either group of patients, which indicates the potential for further weight loss beyond 52 weeks.

But shares of the company fell roughly 5% in premarket trading Tuesday, as the results appear to be at the low end of Wall Street’s expectations. Ahead of the data, several analysts said they expected MariTide to show weight loss of at least 20% in the phase two trial, with some hoping for up to 25%. 

Wall Street has been eagerly awaiting the phase two trial results, which shed light on how Amgen’s drug may measure up to blockbuster weight loss injections from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and a crowded field of treatments being developed by other drugmakers.

Amgen only released data on the first of two year-long parts of the trial, which was designed to test different dose sizes, schedules and regimens of MariTide. The company will use the results of the first part “to put the fine details” on the design of its late-stage study on the treatment, which is “already deep into planning,” Amgen Chief Scientific Officer Jay Bradner said in an interview earlier this month. 

Amgen has said MariTide could offer quicker weight loss, possibly better weight maintenance and fewer shots than weekly injections such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. That could boost Amgen’s odds of winning a slice of the weight loss drug market, which some analysts forecast could be worth $150 billion a year by the early 2030s.

Late-stage studies on Wegovy showed that it led to 15% weight loss over 68 weeks, while Zepbound helped patients lose more than 22% of their weight over 72 weeks. 

MariTide brings a new approach to weight loss compared to the existing drugs on the market because it is a so-called peptide antibody conjugate, which refers to a monoclonal antibody linked to two peptides. The peptides activate receptors of a gut hormone called GLP-1, while the antibody blocks receptors of another hormone called GIP hormone. 

That’s unlike Eli Lilly’s obesity drug, Zepbound, which activates both GIP and GLP-1. Wegovy activates GLP-1 but does not target GIP, which may also affect how the body breaks down sugar and fat.

Shares of Amgen have soared this year in anticipation of the mid-stage trial data. That rally lost steam in recent weeks as one analyst raised questions about MariTide’s potential side effects related to bone density.

Amgen invited patients to participate in the second part of the trial, which examines how durable MariTide’s weight loss is. The company is “interested to see how quickly people who lost weight rebound when they come off the medicine,” Bradner said. 

The second part of the trial also evaluates any progressive weight loss after the initial year on MariTide and tests even less frequent dosing of the drug. Amgen has not said when it will release data from the second part of the trial.

Patients who continued the trial were randomly sorted into several groups. 

For example, patients who took 140-milligram doses of MariTide in the first part of the trial will either continue taking that dose or switch to a placebo for another year, which will measure how long-lasting MariTide’s weight loss is. Some people who took 280-milligram doses in the first part of the trial will take lower doses of the drug for a year. 

Amgen is also testing a quarterly schedule among some patients who took 420-milligram doses in the first part of the trial. That means patients will get a shot once every 12 weeks.