Ozempic, which is technically only approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes but is often prescribed off-label for weight loss, has certainly earned its stripes due to its widely recognized effectiveness. However, one of the major gripes about semaglutide (the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (the active ingredient in Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound) is the painful side effects they can cause, primarily gastrointestinal (GI) issues. Enter Denmark-based company Zealand Pharma, which recently announced that its experimental weight-loss drug helped patients lose significant amounts of weight with fewer side effects.
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At the ObesityWeek conference in San Antonio this week, Zealand revealed that only one-third of patients who took up to 4.8 milligrams of the experimental treatment, petrelintide, reported nausea, Bloomberg reported. At the same time, they still lost an average of 8.6 percent of their body weight in 16 weeks. (However, the company did note that those who took a higher dose of petrelintide lost comparable amounts of weight with more side effects).
Speaking with Bloomberg, Zealand's CEO Adam Steensberg added that petrelintide produces "the same degree of weight loss with a much more tolerable profile" compared to other treatments on the market.
Last month, Steensberg also told CNBC that petrelintide—an amylin analog that works differently from GLP-1s—is Zealand's "crown jewel." While GLP-1s target the GLP-1 hormone in the gut, amylin analogs target amylin, which is produced with insulin in the pancreas.
“We have a very strong feeling that this could become a foundational therapy in the future—something that provides the weight loss that patients are looking for but with the potential for a better tolerability profile," Steensberg told CNBC.
Zealand hopes that the appeal of fewer side effects will be a major draw for its treatment. According to Bloomberg, Zealand is taking somewhat of a different approach, as other companies are trying to take on Novo and Eli Lilly by formulating pill versions of the weight-loss treatments.
As Steenberg told Bloomberg, "The most weight loss isn't the main need right now."
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Zealand first released positive results from the phase 1b trial of petrelintide in June, with no serious or severe adverse events (AEs) reported by participants. All of the GI AEs were "mild," per a company press release, with one patient reporting two "moderate" events in the form of nausea and vomiting. That participant discontinued treatment as the third dose of petrelintide, but no other patients stopped treatment as a result of AEs.
"The data reported from this 16-week trial are both exciting and compelling, demonstrating significant and clinically meaningful reductions in body weight with a very favorable tolerability profile. These results support our conviction that petrelintide is very well tolerated and can potentially play an important role as an alternative to incretin-based therapies for the management of overweight and obesity," David Kendall, MD, Zealand's chief medical officer, said in the release.
Kendall continued, "These data pave the way for rapid progression to Phase 2b trials of petrelintide and further support the potential of this long-acting amylin analog to deliver weight loss comparable to GLP-1 receptor agonists with a better patient experience."
