A logo at the headquarters of Roche Holding AG in Basel, Switzerland, on Thursday, February 1, 2024.
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Roche said Thursday that its experimental weight-loss drug showed promising results in an early study, bolstering the company's efforts to compete in the booming market for these treatments.
By acquiring Carmot Therapeutics in December for nearly $3 billion, the Swiss company joined a number of drugmakers vying to develop anti-obesity drugs. But the weekly weight-loss injection called CT-388 is still years away from hitting the market.
The field of weight loss medications is dominated by treatments Novo Nordisk And Eli Lillyand some analysts expect the market to be worth $100 billion by the end of the decade.
Roche's CT-388 helped patients with obesity lose 18.8% of their weight compared to those who received a placebo after 24 weeks in the Phase 1 trial, the company said.
Roche added that all patients who received the drug lost more than 5% of their weight. Meanwhile, 70% of these people lost more than 15% of their weight and 45% lost more than 20%.
The treatment mimics the action of two gut hormones – GLP-1 and GIP – to suppress a person's appetite, just like Eli Lilly's popular weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes injection Mounjaro.
Scientists have hypothesized that targeting these two hormones could have a significant effect on weight loss and blood sugar levels, with fewer side effects than drugs that only target GLP-1, such as Novo Nordisk's weight loss drug Wegovy.
Roche's CT-388 is being developed to treat obesity and diabetes.
Roche said it did not observe any new or unexpected side effects in patients taking CT-388. The company noted that mild to moderate gastrointestinal side effects were most common, consistent with other weight loss and diabetes medications that work in the same way.
CT-388 also normalized blood sugar levels in a subgroup of patients with prediabetes.
Roche said it will test CT-388 over 12 weeks in another group of patients with obesity and diabetes. The company expects data from these patients in the second half of the year.
Eli Lilly's Zepbound resulted in up to 22% weight loss at 72 weeks, while Novo Nordisk's Wegovy resulted in 15% weight loss at 68 weeks.
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