Today, Amgen announced the positive results of its weight loss therapy MariTide in a 52-week clinical phase 2 study. Analysis shows that in obese or overweight people without type 2 diabetes, MariTide achieved an average weight loss of about 20% in week 52, and there was no weight loss plateau, indicating that patients may lose weight further after treatment for more than 52 weeks.

While weight loss drug companies generally rose, Amgen once plummeted by more than 12.3% because although the efficacy of Amgen's MariTide weight loss drug met Wall Street expectations, it had high side effects and failed to beat Eli Lilly's blockbuster drug Zepbound, and the trial results were lower than Wall Street's high expectations for MariTide.

In a one-year trial, non-diabetic patients took Amgen's MariTide once a month or less frequently and lost up to 20% of their weight. Wegovy's late-stage study showed a 15% weight loss in 68 weeks, while Zepbound helped patients lose more than 22% of their weight in 72 weeks.

Analysts pointed out that this is comparable to the highest dose effect of Eli Lilly's Zepbound. But both Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy are injected once a week, so MariTide may have an advantage over the popular weekly injections on the market.

However, data show that MariTide has greater side effects than Zepbound. About 11% of patients withdrew from the MariTide trial due to side effects, while in Zepbound's Phase 3 trial, the proportion was about 7%. These side effects are mainly gastrointestinal, which is in line with expectations for this class of drugs.

Amgen responded that nausea and vomiting are usually mild, short-lived, and mainly related to the first use of the drug, and Amgen addresses these symptoms by slowing down the time of taking the drug.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/