Viking Therapeutics stock jumps on weight reduction injection trial plans

Shares of Viking Therapeutics jumped 28% on Thursday after the biotech company a day earlier announced plans to advance its experimental weight reduction injection right into a late-stage trial sooner than expected. 

It brings the San Diego-based company one step closer to joining the highly popular marketplace for GLP-1s, which analysts say could grow right into a $150 billion market by the tip of the last decade. 

Viking is one in all several small and enormous drugmakers hoping to compete within the space against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, whose weight reduction and diabetes GLP-1s have skyrocketed in demand over the past two years. 

Shares of Eli Lilly closed greater than 4% lower on Thursday, while Novo Nordisk’s stock closed almost 3% lower.

Viking previously said it was expecting to start out one other mid-stage trial on its weekly injection, called VK2735, after reporting positive results from one other phase two study in late February. 

But after receiving written feedback from the Food and Drug Administration, the corporate has decided to maneuver the injection directly right into a phase three trial, CEO Brian Lian said during an earnings call Wednesday. 

Lian said the corporate is preparing to satisfy with the FDA within the fourth quarter to debate the design and timing of that phase three trial, with plans to start out the study afterward.

That call will likely shave a yr off of Viking’s development timeline for the injection, BTIG analyst Justin Zelin said in a note Wednesday. Currently, analysts estimate that the drug will launch in 2029, Zelin said. 

In the course of the call, Lian added that Viking expects to check VK2735 as a monthly injection in a future study. That might make the treatment a more convenient option than Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, that are each taken once every week.

Viking Therapeutics’ drug promotes weight reduction by targeting a GLP-1 and one other hormone called GIP. Those are the identical hormones that Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and diabetes counterpart Mounjaro goal.

Patients who received weekly doses of the Viking’s injection in a phase two trial lost as much as 14.7% of their body weight, or 13.1% when put next with a placebo, after 13 weeks. 

Viking can be developing an oral version of VK2735. That pill caused 3.3% weight reduction when put next to a placebo in an early-stage trial.