By Michael Erman and Deena Beasley
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 12 (Reuters) – An extension study of Amgen’s experimental obesity drug MariTide found that it helped people maintain weight loss while a second mid-stage trial in diabetes patients showed that it lowered their blood sugar and weight, the company said on Monday.
The findings were announced by CEO Bob Bradway in a presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Amgen said in June that MariTide helped overweight or obese patients shed up to 20% of their body weight in its 52-week Phase 2 study. Most patients, however, experienced gastrointestinal side effects like vomiting and the company said future trials would start with a much lower dose that would increase over time.
In the second part of the Phase 2 trial – aimed at assessing the drug’s potential as a maintenance therapy – patients who achieved 15% or more weight loss were re-randomized to receive different doses of MariTide or a placebo for another 52 weeks.
Amgen said a “large majority” of those patients given a lower monthly dose or a quarterly dose of the drug maintained weight loss achieved in the first part of the study.
The second year of MariTide treatment was very well tolerated including at quarterly doses, with a low incidence of nausea and vomiting and no new safety signals observed, the company said.
“Other people are clamoring to develop once-monthly or less frequent dose medicines, and we are unambiguously in the lead there,” Jay Bradner, Amgen’s head of research and development, told Reuters on Monday.
Current popular weight-loss drugs like Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy are weekly injections.
Amgen also said a 24-week study of monthly MariTide in people living with Type 2 diabetes who are overweight or with obesity showed robust and clinically meaningful reduction in both HbA1c, a measure of blood sugar, and weight.
Wegovy targets receptors for the appetite- and blood-sugar-reducing hormone known as GLP-1, while Zepbound stimulates GLP-1 and a second gut hormone called GIP.
Amgen’s MariTide takes a different approach. It is an antibody linked to a pair of peptides that activates the GLP-1 receptor while simultaneously blocking the GIP receptor.
Amgen is currently conducting several Phase 3 trials of MariTide, including a 72-week study testing three different doses in obese or overweight adults.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles and Michael Erman in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis)
