The Amgen logo is shown outside Amgen's headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California, on May 17, 2023.
Mario Tama | Getty images
Amgen On Wednesday, he said that two critical essays have begun at the late stage for his experimental maritid of weight loss injection, another step in his attempt to enter the boom in obesity drug market.
“We are delighted to share that these essays have begun, and in reality, the progression of the maritime program goes very, very well,” said Dr. Jay Bradner, Executive Vice President of Research and Development of Amgen, during a TD Cowen conference, using the name of the Phase Tres Development Program of the Drug.
Maritide is a monthly injection that investors hope they can compete against existing weight loss medications Novo Nordisk and Eli Lillywhich are weekly injectables. They are part of a drug class called LPG-1S, which mimic certain hormones produced in the intestine to reduce appetite and regulate blood sugar.
About 6% of American adults, or more than 15 million people, were using a recipe for LPG-1 from May, according to a survey by the KFF Health Policy Organization. Some analysts hope that the LPG-1 market is more than $ 150 billion annually in the early 2030s.
One of the new phase three tests is to examine Amgen's medication in around 3,500 people with obesity or who have overweight without type 2 diabetes, Bradner said. The second study examines the maritid in 999 obese or overweight patients and who have type 2 diabetes
The main objective of both studies is to measure the weight loss percentage at 72 weeks. Amgen will study three target doses of maritid and plan to use dose escalation, or start patients with a lower dose of the drug and increase that amount over time. The company did not share a specific regime for dosing in the trials.
Amgen in November said that Maritide helped patients with obesity to lose up to 20% of their weight on average after a year in a phase test two, without a weight loss plateau. The medicine also helped patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes to lose up to 17% of their weight after a year without plateau. But the results were at the lower end of the high expectations of Wall Street for the drug.
Amgen will report more data about Maritide this year. The complete results of the phase two test will be presented at the Conference of the American Diabetes Association in June. The company also continues to study patients in an extension of that essay that will be read in the second half of this year.
The maritid provides a new approach to weight loss compared to existing medications in the market because it is a conjugated peptide antibody, which refers to a monoclonal antibody linked to two peptides. The peptides activate an intestinal hormone called LPG-1, while the antibody blocks the receptors of another hormone called GIP.
That is different from the Obesity drug of Eli Lilly, Zepbound, which activates both GIP and LPG-1. Novo Nordisk Wegovy Active LPG-1 but does not go to GIP, which can also affect the way the body breaks down sugar and fat.
