Some pharmaceutical products have become massively popular in the past few years. The class of vaccines and drugs that help prevent and treat COVID-19 is a good example. These allowed us to contain the pandemic, so their fame is well deserved. Another category of drugs has been making plenty of noise lately: anti-obesity medicines.
Perhaps the most famous is Wegovy, marketed by Novo Nordisk (NVO 0.84%). The Denmark-based drugmaker is a leader in this niche. Though Wegovy still has a long and bright future ahead of it, Novo Nordisk is working on another highly promising weight loss therapy. Let's find out what it is and its significance for Novo Nordisk's prospects.
Promising early-stage clinical trial results
Novo Nordisk recently reported positive phase 1 data from one of its candidates called amycretin. According to the pharmaceutical giant, amycretin led to a 13.1% mean reduction in body weight after 12 weeks of treatment. The company also highlighted that the medicine's adverse effects were consistent with those of similar therapies.
There are several things to note here. First, Wegovy's results weren't that dramatic in a study where it led to a 5.9% decrease in body weight in three months (roughly 12 weeks). These aren't necessarily comparable -- a lot of factors can influence the results of different studies for different clinical compounds. There is no way to know for sure whether amycretin is better than Wegovy unless they are pitted against one another in the same study. Or at least until we have much more data on amycretin. Still, amycretin's phase 1 results are highly encouraging.
Second, amycretin is an oral medicine taken once daily. Wegovy and other leading weight loss therapies, such as Eli Lilly's Zepbound, are administered as weekly subcutaneous injections. Some patients prefer pills, so amycretin could attract a decent number of people for this reason if it ends up earning approval.
Novo Nordisk isn't afraid of competition
Novo Nordisk's massive success in the weight loss area has attracted plenty of competition. Several of the largest drugmakers are now looking for a piece of the market. Even relatively small and unknown companies are taking action. Viking Therapeutics, a midcap biotech, recently more than doubled its share price in one day following positive phase 2 results for an obesity treatment candidate.
However, Novo Nordisk's phase 1 result for amycretin shows that it isn't just resting on its laurels, even though, along with Eli Lilly, it remains one of the undisputed leaders in this field. There is still a long way to go for amycretin, but Novo Nordisk's track record grants it a competitive advantage. The company is using artificial intelligence to analyze the massive amount of data at its disposal in developing anti-diabetes medicine to help identify promising candidates.
The result should increase the probability of clinical success. Novo Nordisk is also boosting its early-stage pipeline. The number of phase 1 clinical trials Novo Nordisk is running has grown by 80% since 2018. So, the company looks more than capable of holding its own in an increasingly competitive weight loss market, even if amycretin ends up being a dud.
Plenty of upside potential left
Ultimately, investors will want Novo Nordisk to continue delivering excellent financial performance and market-beating returns. For now, Wegovy, Ozempic, and several other medicines are driving its top and bottom lines higher. In 2023, Novo Nordisk's net sales of 232.3 billion Danish kroner (DKK), about $34 billion, increased by 31% year over year, an excellent performance for a pharmaceutical giant. The company's net profit of 83.7 billion DKK ($12.3 billion) was 51% higher than in the previous fiscal year.
Wegovy's sales in 2023 skyrocketed by 407% to 31.3 billion DKK ($4.6 billion). Whether it is amycretin or some other early-stage compound, Novo Nordisk will surely have a successor to Wegovy eventually.
And the company's pipeline extends beyond weight management into diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc. In diabetes treatment, Novo Nordisk is awaiting approval for icodec, a once-weekly insulin product.
The company is developing medicines for sickle cell disease, Alzheimer's disease, and more. Novo Nordisk's innovative potential is well established: Investors can still bet on the company to deliver clinical and regulatory breakthroughs and outsized returns.
