AmgenIts stock rose more than 12% on Friday after the drugmaker reported positive initial data for its experimental weight-loss injection.
That fueled investor concerns about new competition in the fast-growing weight-loss drug industry, sending shares from current obesity players, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, lower on Friday. Shares of Eli Lilly fell nearly 3 percent, while U.S.-traded shares of Novo Nordisk fell more than 1 percent.
Shares in Novo Nordisk were already under pressure on Thursday after sales of the Wegovy blockbuster missed analysts’ first-quarter estimates on lower prices.
During a first-quarter earnings call Thursday, Amgen CEO 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 laser-focused on this drug and the rest of Amgen’s pipeline of weight-loss drugs as it races with many other drugmakers to join the booming market.
“We are confident in MariTide’s diversified profile and believe it will fill significant unmet medical needs,” Bradway said during the call.
Amgen did not provide specific data, but its chief scientific officer Jay Bradner said patient dropouts have not been a problem. He said Amgen is on track to release initial data from the study in late 2024 and is also planning late-stage studies in patients with obesity, obesity-related conditions and diabetes.
Bradway also highlighted the potential competitive advantages of the injection, which patients will receive using an automatic hand-held injector once a month or even less often. This could offer much more convenience than the weekly injections on the market, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
“While there has been considerable debate about the potential efficacy and safety of MariTide since the initial disclosures of Phase I data in 2022, we have grown more confident in the potential to meaningfully differentiate the treatment from other therapies in development, particularly with regard to treatment intervals,” William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note on Friday, adding that the firm is upgrading its rating on Amgen shares to “outperform.”
Specifically, Amgen said it was scrapping its experimental obesity drug. But that development was not as significant as the MariTide update, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a research note on Thursday.
Amgen’s Bradway said the company has begun expanding production for MariTide. That’s a signal that the company is preparing to produce enough stock of the drug — a major issue that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have grappled with over the past year and a half.
Still, investors were happy with Eli Lilly on Tuesday after the company assured them it could overcome ongoing supply constraints for its popular drugs. Eli Lilly raised its guidance for the full year, partly on optimism about increased production of Zepbound, the diabetes injectable Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.
Eli Lilly has several plants either “in development or under construction,” including two sites in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, along with a recently acquired seventh site, executives said during a call to the profits.
Meanwhile, investors were less impressed with Novo Nordisk on Thursday.
Wegovy’s first-quarter sales nearly doubled, but were below analysts’ expectations. This signals that Novo Nordisk is struggling to meet demand for the treatment.
But Novo Nordisk also pointed to stiff competition from Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, which has shaken the price momentum for Wegovy in the U.S.
“Net pricing” for both Wegovy and Ozempic will be lower in the U.S. throughout the year due to “increasing volume and competition,” Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said in an earnings conference call first quarter on Thursday.