Updated Version 4 - Viking Therapeutics’ weight loss drug shows lasting effectiveness, stock price surges

Updated stock price in paragraph 2

Padmanabhan Ananthan

Reuters, September 22 - Viking Therapeutics (stock code: VKTX.O) said on Tuesday that patients who switched to a less frequent dosing regimen of its experimental obesity treatment showed better weight loss maintenance compared to those taking a placebo, according to a study.

The drug developer’s share price closed up 35.7% at $40.85, marking its biggest single-day gain in over two years.

The results support the company’s efforts to ease treatment burden. Viking has been developing flexible dosing regimens for injectable and oral forms of VK2735, aiming to establish a position in the fast-growing obesity treatment market.

The company said on Tuesday that patients who received VK2735 every two weeks maintained as much as 97% of the weight lost during the initial 21-week treatment period; those on a once-monthly dosing regimen retained 90% of their previous weight loss over the subsequent 12 weeks.

Former Obesity Society president Louis Aronne said reducing dosing frequency helps patients stick to anti-obesity medications for longer.

Currently, the obesity market is dominated by major pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk NOVOb.CO and Eli Lilly LLY.N, which are aggressively competing for market share through effective and convenient treatments that include both injectable and oral drugs.

(link) Analysts estimate annual obesity market sales will reach $100 billion by 2030.

Leerink Partners analyst Thomas Smith said the data further validate VK2735’s differentiating features and competitive advantages, adding that the drug’s safety and tolerability are “impressively good.”

Viking said that in a group receiving 33 weeks of once-weekly treatment, patients lost on average 21.7% of their body weight, adding that the company plans to study oral maintenance dosing in future trials.

“We believe long-term weight management will not follow a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach,” said Viking CEO Brian Lian, adding that patients will need multiple options throughout their weight-loss journey to achieve personalized therapy.

(To facilitate readers whose first language is not English, Reuters has automated translations of its reports into several other languages. Owing to possible inaccuracies from automated translation or missing context, Reuters does not guarantee the accuracy of automated translations and provides them for reader convenience only. Reuters accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by using the automated translation function.)