Ozempic maker unveils new weight loss pill TWICE as good as its blockbuster jab

• Novo Nordisk now worth over $566BN, more than Tesla and Visa’s valuations
• Drug led to a 13 percent drop in body weight over 12 weeks, better than Wegovy
• READ MORE:  Just 20% of Ozempic patients keep all the weight off after stopping

Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical giant, has revealed preliminary study results showing that its weight loss pill performed better than blockbuster shots. 

Study participants who took the medication, called amyretin, lost 13 percent of their body weight over 12 weeks, exceeding the amount of weight lost from its obesity jab Wegovy, which was 6 percent over the same time period. 

The groundbreaking results, which have not yet been stood up by strict scientific scrutiny, propelled the company to the ranking of 12th most valuable company with a valuation of $566 billion, surpassing that of Tesla and Visa. 

The Danish drug maker, along with Eli Lilly, run what is essentially a duopoly on the obesity medicine market, and both have struggled to meet soaring demand for their highly effective monthly diet shots. 

Company shares surged more than eight percent in Copenhagen, and its total value now exceeds the entire annual output of Denmark. 

The drug trial, which is ongoing and expected to produce a fuller picture next year, was welcome news to investors eager to introduce the next iteration of obesity medicine in a format that will likely be more appealing to patients, especially those with a phobia of needles. 

The drug is similar to Wegovy and its sister drug Ozempic, orginally approved solely to treat type 2 diabetes but is now used off label for obesity. 

It targets the same GLP-1 hormone, or glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone in the brain that regulates appetite and feelings of fullness. In addition, it stimulates another hormone, amylin, which also reduces hunger and slows stomach emptying. 

The drug also appeared to be safe and well-tolerated among the 16 people who took it over three months, and whose average weight at the start of the trial was 196 pounds. 

The speed at which people shed pounds on amyretin far outstripped the amount of time it took for Wegovy and Ozempic patients to lose that amount in trials, which was 68 weeks. 

Meanwhile, Eli Lilly, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic competitor Zepbound, saw its company shares decline two percent at the New York market open. 

Novo’s shares have risen more than three-fold since June 2021 when it launched Wegovy in the United States, last year becoming Europe’s most valuable listed company, ahead of LVMH. 

Wegovy maker spent $1BILLION on ads and paid doctors millions 

Novo Nordisk has also paid tens of millions of dollars to leading physicians who specialize in obesity and cardiology to promote the drugs, encourage their peers to prescribe them and lobby insurers to cover the costs. 

The company, dead-set on owning a massive chunk of the obesity medicine market, also said it will continue working on another treatment called CagriSema.

It’s a combination therapy that contains semaglutide to target GLP-1, as well as a drug called cagrilintide, an analog of the hunger-busting compound amylin. 

The combination treatment previously showed 17.1 percent weight loss in over just 20 weeks in a phase 1 obesity trial, compared to 9.8 percent for semaglutide alone.  

Marcus Schindler, Novo’s chief of research and early development, told Bloomberg: ‘This is a very competitive profile.’

The advent of a highly effective daily pill alternative to the shots will likely alleviate the supply chain issues and delays in getting the medicines into the hands of patients. 

The company made an $11 billion deal last month to buy three factories where Wegovy and Ozempic will be produced. 

The company also announced it would invest $8.7 billion last year to expand manufacturing capacity for its drugs.