It is fair to say that Novo Nordisk is at the forefront of the weight-loss and type 2 diabetes drug market. The company's semaglutide injection—better known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy—has become well-known for its weight-loss results and ability to manage diabetes. And while there are several competitors now on the market, Novo itself has another treatment in development. Its experimental drug, CagriSema, is a combination of the semaglutide compound and another compound called cagrilintide. While studies are still underway, Novo predicts that CagriSema will help people drop a staggering 25 percent of their body weight.
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If Novo is correct, Bloomberg reports that CagriSema would be "the most effective treatment yet, in terms of pounds lost in a large clinical trial—potentially without causing more side effects than Wegovy alone."
For reference, Wegovy has the potential to help people lose up to 15 percent of their body weight, per Reuters. (It's worth noting that Ozempic is only approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but it is often prescribed off-label for weight loss. Wegovy is approved for chronic weight management.)
Results from the phase 3 REDEFINE 1 trial of CagriSema are expected to be released at the end of this year, Martin Holst Lange, MD, PhD, Novo Nordisk's head of development, said during an earnings call yesterday. Results from the second major trial of CagriSema (REDEFINE 2) are anticipated to be available in the first half of 2025, Lange told investors.
Currently, there is "no new data" to release, and as a result, their confidence in the treatment results "remains to be the same," Lange said on the call.
"No change in our confidence level," he reiterated to Reuters yesterday.
But the drug's benefits don't stop there, executives said. In addition to producing more weight loss, Novo has also posited that the hybrid drug could help prevent patients from regaining weight after discontinuing use (a major concern with these kinds of treatments), Bloomberg reported.
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Like Wegovy, CagriSema targets the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) hormone in the gut. However, CagriSem also targets amylin, another hormone in the pancreas that affects hunger. Novo has a separate drug in development, Amycretin, which comes in pill form and targets both GLP-1 and amylin.
Zealand Pharma also has an amylin-targeting experimental drug in the works: petrelintide. According to company statements at the ObesityWeek conference in San Antonio this week, patients taking the treatment lost an average of 8.6 percent of their body weight in 16 weeks. The company honed in on the fact that the patients also reported reduced side effects, with only one-third of patients taking up to 4.8 milligrams of petrelintide reporting nausea, Bloomberg reported.
