By Bill Alpert

After the slimming effect of Ozempic and Zepbound earned billions for Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, another class of weight-loss drugs called amylins is drawing the drug industry's attention and dollars.

A couple of multibillion-dollar development deals for amylin drugs were signed this year, and more news will come out at June's scientific session of the American Diabetes Association.

"Amylin was become one of the more attractive targets in the obesity space, as evidenced by recent deals," a Guggenheim Securities team led by Seamus Fernandez explained in a Wednesday note.

A group that includes Novo, Lilly, AstraZeneca, Roche Holding, Zealand Pharma, Metsera, and Structure Therapeutics are testing drugs in this class. They hope amylins will allow weight-loss with milder digestive discomfort, used alone or in combo with GLP-1s.

GLP-1s have shown impressive benefits beyond weight loss, including benefits for the heart, kidneys and perhaps even the brain. Key questions include whether the amylins help people with diabetes lose more weight than they do on GLP-1s; and whether the amylins have the benefits beyond weight loss that GLP-1s are demonstrating.

Drugs like Novo's Ozempic and Wegovy target the body's receptors for GLP-1, a natural hormone secreted by the small intestine that regulates blood sugar and hunger. Amylin is produced with insulin by the pancreas. It makes people feel full faster and may spare lean muscle from weight loss better than GLP-1s. Amylin also seems easier on the gut than GLP-1s -- which bring diarrhea or constipation to some users.

The furthest along of amylin-powered drugs is Novo's CagriSema, which combines an amylin analog with the GLP-1 that is used in Wegovy. In clinical trials so far, it hasn't met expectations for weight loss. That has disappointed investors and done little to stem the past 12-months' selloff in Novo stock.

The company had hoped that CagriSema would cause an average weight loss of 25% in its 16-month Redefine-1 study, which would have been competitive with Lilly's hot-selling Zepbound. Instead, CagriSema averaged 20.4% in the Phase 3 trial. Guggenheim analysts wonder if the amylin part of the drug is the best that Novo could have found.

Full details from the CagriSema Phase 3 will be presented Sunday, June 22, at the ADA science meeting. The Guggenheim analysts will be looking for the drug's performance in sparing muscle mass, as well as its tolerability.

The ADA meeting will also hear the first results from Lilly's Phase 1 study of an amylin promoter it calls eloralintide. The company abandoned an earlier amylin drug because it elevated people's cortisol levels and put them in bad moods. Eloralintide is a completely different drug.

Like GLP-1s, the amylin class of hormones has attracted many pharma suitors. In March, Roche made a deal worth up to $5.3 billion with Denmark's Zealand Pharma to advance petrelintide, an amylin drug whose Phase 2 trial should read out next year. The same month, another Danish firm called Gubra notched a deal worth up to $2.2 billion with AbbVie, to do a Phase 1 in 2026.

Today's GLP-1 drugs must be injected weekly. So it will be interesting to see the first Phase 1 data sometime in June on MET-233i, a long-acting amylin analog from Metseri. The biotech has a couple of studies under way and Guggenheim analysts are intrigued by the possibility that patients could take its drugs once a month.

Yet another Big Pharma company well along in its amylin trials is AstraZeneca. Readouts from a Phase 2 obesity study of its amylin contender will appear in this year's second half. Another Phase 2 in diabetic patients will report results next year.

Write to Bill Alpert at william.alpert@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 29, 2025 14:09 ET (18:09 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.