Boehringer Ingelheim advances obesity drug candidate with up to 19% weight loss in mid-stage trial

Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim said on Thursday it would conduct three late-stage studies for its obesity drug candidate after it showed up to 19% weight loss after 46 weeks in a mid-stage trial.

The private company plans to start enrollments for the trial of the drug, survodutide, which it co-invented with Danish biotech company Zealand Pharma, before the end of the year.

The trials will evaluate the drug’s safety and efficacy, Boehringer said, and added that it would provide further details on the studies before initiation.

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Boehringer and Zealand are among global drugmakers racing to grab a share of the potential $100 billion market for obesity treatments within a decade.

Survodutide works by mimicing a gut hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which suppresses appetite, as well as imitating another gut hormone called glucagon that helps break down fat.

The companies are also testing survodutide in patients with a type of fatty liver disease called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).