By Bill Alpert

Many folks don't like to talk much about weight loss, and so it is with Amgen. The biotech firm disclosed study results the other day for its obesity drug MariTide.

The news was good, but there wasn't much of it. On Monday, the company reported that a "large majority" of the participants taking MariTide for a second year in a Phase 2 study were able to maintain the weight loss achieved in the first year.

Earlier reports showed first-year weight loss on MariTide was about 17% to 18% of body weight -- very strong results, but on par with the performance of the already-marketed products from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that are in the same class of drugs known as GLP1s.

To avoid me-too status, Amgen is positioning MariTide as an injection that patients can take less frequently than the weekly shots sold by Lilly and Novo. Here, too, Monday's news sounded good.

Those in the Phase 2 study kept the weight off while only getting the drug monthly, or even quarterly. MariTide might also be easier on the stomach than the other GLP1 drugs: Amgen said there was "a very low incidence of nausea and vomiting."

Study patients with Type 2 diabetes also maintained the drug's improvement in their cardiovascular and metabolic measures, Amgen CEO Robert Bradway told investors Monday.

"[W]e can pair strong efficacy with the potential for monthly or even less frequent dosing," he said. "That will offer a very compelling combination for patients, prescribers and payers."

The MariTide update was qualitative, not quantitative, wrote Guggenheim analyst Vamil Divan in a Wednesday note. He expects Amgen will report more detail from the Phase 2 study at the June meeting of the American Diabetes Association.

Amgen has launched six Phase 3 trials for MariTide, signaling that it is betting the drug can join the company's other fast-growing products like the cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha, the bone health drug Evenity, and the asthma treatment Tezspire. Another drug in its pipeline is olpasiran, which reduces a harmful kind of cholesterol called Lp(a), for which there is no current treatment.

In the 12 months ending September 2025, Amgen grew its overall sales 10%, to $36 billion, while growing its cash earnings per share 14%, to $21.87. That helped the stock rise about 24% in the past year, beating the S & P 500 by 5 percentage points. The company will report year-end 2025 results on Feb. 3.

With Amgen now trading at $332, it is going for about 15.7 times the Guggenheim analyst's forecast for 2026 earnings. The company's challenge is to replace the revenue it will lose as sales decline for big products like Otezla and Prolia.

Divan rates Amgen a Hold. "Overall, we are encouraged by the progress the company has made," he wrote, "but still believe additional growth drivers are needed."

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

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January 15, 2026 16:40 ET (21:40 GMT)

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