Novo Nordisk stock surged Thursday after its oral version of Wegovy helped patients lose a "significant" amount of weight over the course of 64 weeks.
Patients lost on average of 16.6% of their body weight while taking oral semaglutide, the active ingredient behind the injectable anti-obesity blockbuster Wegovy. Placebo recipients lost an average of 2.7% of their body weight. More than a third of the semaglutide group lost at least 20% of their body weight, compared to 2.9% of the placebo group.
Martin Holst Lange, Novo's chief scientific officer, called the results "compelling," noting they match up with injectable Wegovy in terms of effectiveness and safety. Lange estimates that less than 2% of people with obesity in the U.S. receive an anti-obesity medication.
"Wegovy in a pill may also address patient preference for oral treatment," he said in a written statement. "Pending FDA approval, ample supply will be available to meet the expected U.S. demand as we hope to set a new treatment benchmark for oral weight loss medications."
In morning trading on the stock market today, Novo Nordisk stock jumped more than 5% to 61.49. Shares of Eli Lilly, Novo's biggest competitor in the space, rose a fraction to 765.26.
Facing Off With Eli Lilly
The results come a day after Eli Lilly posted mixed results for its weight-loss pill in a head-to-head study pitting its orforglipron against semaglutide. Patients who received orforglipron lost up to 9.2% of their body weight over the course of a year, vs. just 5.3% for the semaglutide group.
But gastrointestinal side effects were greater in orforglipron recipients than in patients who received Lilly's injectable drug, tirzepatide, Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said in a client note. He compared multiple studies of orforglipron and tirzepatide. The latter is the chemical backbone behind Eli Lilly's injectable drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro.
Side effects like vomiting and nausea are common for the drug class, however. In Novo Nordisk's study, 46.6% of semaglutide patients experienced nausea vs. 18.6% of placebo patients. Among the semaglutide group, 30.9% had vomiting vs. just 5.9% of the placebo group. But only 6.9% of patients in the semaglutide dropped out due to side effects, compared with 5.9% of the placebo group.
Novo Nordisk has already asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve its oral semaglutide. The company expects the agency to wrap its review sometime this year. If approved, Novo's Wegovy in a pill would be the first oral anti-obesity medication.
Still, Novo Nordisk stock has been under pressure this year, declining more than 32% as of Wednesday's close. But shares retook their 50-day moving average on Wednesday and continued climbing early Thursday.
High Dropout Rates
Analysts are split on the implications of Eli Lilly's study, however.
Daniel Barasa, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, says Lilly is "well positioned to maintain leadership in the GLP-1 market." He notes orforglipron can be taken at any time of the day, with or without food. Oral semaglutide, on the other hand, must be taken in a fasting state. It can't be taken with food or beverages other than water.
Further, oral semaglutide is already available on the market as the type 2 diabetes drug Rybelsus. But these restrictions have limited its uptake.
Leerink's Risinger, though, says it takes longer for patients to achieve weight loss with orforglipron, the pill from Eli Lilly.
"And real-world patients are more likely to omit daily doses, potentially leading to repeated GI side effects," he said. "Note that patients need to down-titrate when restarting after missing 3+ days or orforglipron since its half-life is just over 24 hours."
The half-life is how long it takes a drug's concentration in the body to decline to 50%. Drugs with a shorter half-life must be dosed more frequently. He also noted the discontinuation rates in Eli Lilly's study were relatively high with 21.9% to 24.4% of patients — depending on the dosage — dropping out due to side effects.
"Our takeaway is that although orforglipron's efficacy to tolerability ratio is below that of tirzepatide and semaglutide, it will still be a mega-blockbuster drug," he said. "We thus continue to project 2030 sales of $14 (billion)."
Follow Allison Gatlin on X/Twitter at @AGatlin_IBD.
