Roche says obesity drug results ‘encouraging’ as competition heats up

Roche said its obesity treatment delivered almost 19 per cent weight loss in early trials, as the Swiss pharmaceutical company seeks to rival Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s dominance in the booming sector.

Roche’s once-weekly CT-388 injection led to “clinically meaningful and statistically significant” results for patients with obesity compared with a placebo, resulting in weight loss of 18.8 per cent over 24 weeks. Side effects were similar to other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, the company said on Thursday, including nausea and vomiting. Shares in Roche rose by almost 5 per cent in morning trading.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly already have follow-up treatments to their blockbuster weight-loss drugs in mid-stage trials and analysts expect them to continue to dominate the sector.

But with the weight-loss market expected to grow to $100bn by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs, companies such as Roche and AstraZeneca are developing their own drugs to gain a small but lucrative foothold.

The early results compare favourably to Eli Lilly’s Zepbound drug, which delivered 21 per cent weight loss over 72 weeks, and Novo Nordisk’s market leading Wegovy drug, which has led to 15 per cent weight loss in 68 weeks.

But Roche did not provide data points including how high its weekly doses were, meaning it is “challenging to put these early headline results into context”, said Peter Welford, an analyst at Jefferies.

While the data is “encouraging”, “there is still a long road ahead” before the company can sell its treatment, he added.

The company acquired the drug through its $3.1bn purchase of Californian biotech company Carmot Therapeutics in December. Roche is also exploring the drug’s effect on patients with type-2 diabetes.

CT-388 works in a similar way to Zepbound, by mimicking both the GLP-1 gut hormone responsible for lowering blood sugar, and another gut hormone, GIP. Scientists believe this combination may lead to stronger weight loss and reduction in blood sugar with fewer side effects than drugs such as Wegovy, based solely on GLP-1.

“The results are highly encouraging for further development of CT-388 for both obesity and type-2 diabetes and underscore its potential to become a best-in-class therapy with durable weight loss and glucose control,” said Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical officer.