Zealand, Boehringer's drug meets main weight-loss goal in mid-stage trial

[May 10, 2023]  By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Zealand Pharma and partner Boehringer Ingelheim said their experimental obesity drug achieved up to 14.9% weight loss after 46 weeks in a mid-stage trial, adding a potential contestant to the fast growing obesity drug market.

In a statement on Wednesday, the partners said that the Phase II dose-finding trial met its primary endpoint of weight loss, the Danish company added.

A spokesperson for unlisted Boehringer said that the partners are in discussion with regulators about a potential follow-up trial in the third and last phase of testing that is typically required for approval.

The enormous demand for weight-loss treatments such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, or potentially Eli Lilly's Mounjaro, could support as many as 10 competing products with annual sales reaching up to $100 billion within a decade, mostly in the United States, industry executives and analysts said.

Zealand shares were little changed at 0750 GMT after jumping as much as 3.3% after the open.

Its drug, for now going by the name of BI 456906, is a weekly injection under the skin like Mounjaro and Wegovy as well as like Novo's lower-dose diabetes drug Ozempic with the same active ingredient as Wegovy.

The logo of German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim is seen at its building in Shanghai, China February 1, 2019. Picture taken February 1, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

Like the other drugs, BI 456906 works by reducing the effect of a gut hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that is involved in regulating appetite and food intake.

But BI 456906 also blocks another gut hormone called glucagon. Mounjaro also has a dual mechanism of action, but it blocks yet another gut hormone in addition to GLP-1.

According to drug trial database clinicaltrials.gov, participants in the Zealand/Boehringer trial were put into five groups by chance, with four getting different doses of the experimental weekly shot and the fifth getting a placebo.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Louise Heavens)

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