(Reuters) -Viking Therapeutics said on Tuesday its experimental weight-loss pill helped people with obesity lose up to 12.2% of their body weight over 13 weeks in a keenly-watched mid-stage study.
Shares of the company slumped 30% in premarket trading after the company reported that, overall, 28% of people on the drug discontinued it, compared with 18% on placebo.
Oral drugs are expected to take a significant share of the projected $150 billion weight-loss market, driven by their ease of use compared with injections such as Wegovy from Novo Nordisk and Zepbound from Eli Lilly.
Viking’s experimental oral pill is in a tight race with rival treatments being developed by the deeper-pocketed Novo and Lilly.
Analysts ahead of the results had expected weight loss in the range of 10% to 15% on average and greater than the 8.2% seen in a small early-stage trial.
The study enrolled 280 overweight adults who had at least one comorbidity related to the disease.
(Reporting by Sriparna Roy and Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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