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AmgenShares of the company rose more than 12% on Friday after the drugmaker reported positive preliminary data on its experimental weight-loss injection.
That heightened investor concerns about new competition in the fast-growing weight-loss drug industry, causing stock prices for current obesity companies to rise. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Company, lower on Friday. Eli Lilly fell nearly 3%, while Novo Nordisk’s U.S.-listed shares fell more than 1%.
Shares of Novo Nordisk were already under pressure on Thursday after first-quarter sales of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss injection Wegovy failed to meet analysts’ expectations due to lower pricing.
On Thursday’s first-quarter earnings call, Amgen Chief Executive Bob Bradway said he was “very encouraged” by early results from a mid-stage study of the company’s obesity injection MariTide. Investors have been focusing on the drug and Amgen’s other line of weight-loss drugs as Amgen competes with several other drugmakers to join the booming market.
“We are confident in MariTide’s differentiated profile and believe it will address an important unmet medical need,” Bradway said on the call.
Amgen did not provide specific data, but its chief scientific officer Jay Bradner said patient withdrawals were not an issue. Amgen expects to release preliminary data from the study by the end of 2024, and plans to conduct later-stage studies in patients with obesity, obesity-related diseases and diabetes, he said.
Bradway also highlighted the potential competitive advantage of the injection, which patients will receive as often as once a month or even less frequently using a handheld auto-injector. That may offer more convenience than Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, which are on the market as weekly injections.
“Since the first disclosure of Phase I data in 2022, while there has been significant debate over MariTide’s potential efficacy and safety, we have become increasingly confident in the potential of this therapy to significantly differentiate from other therapies in development, particularly William Blair is raising its rating on Amgen stock to “outperform,” analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note on Friday.
Notably, Amgen said it would abandon its experimental oral obesity drug. But Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a research note Thursday that this development is not as significant as MariTide’s update.
Amgen’s Bradway said the company has begun scaling up production of MariTide. It’s a signal that the company is preparing to produce an adequate supply of the drug – a major issue that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have been grappling with over the past year and a half.
Still, investors were pleased with Eli Lilly on Tuesday as the company assured them it could overcome ongoing supply constraints on its popular drug. Eli Lilly raised its full-year guidance in part due to optimism about increased production of Zepbound, diabetes injection Mounjaro and similar drugs through the remainder of the year.
Executives said on the earnings call that Eli Lilly has multiple manufacturing sites that are “expanding or under construction,” including two plants in North Carolina, two plants in Indiana, a plant in Ireland and a plant in Germany. one factory, and a seventh recently acquired.
Meanwhile, investors were less than impressed with Novo Nordisk on Thursday.
Wegovy’s sales nearly doubled in the first quarter, but fell short of analysts’ expectations. This shows Novo Nordisk is working hard to meet treatment needs.
But Novo Nordisk also pointed to stiff competition from Eli Lilly and Company’s Zepbound, which has shaken up Wegovy’s pricing dynamics in the U.S.
Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said on Thursday’s first-quarter earnings call that Wegovy and Ozempic’s “net pricing” in the U.S. will be lower for the full year due to “increased sales and competition.”
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