Boehringer Ingelheim says weight-loss drug had positive impact on liver condition

The developer of a rival weight-loss treatment to those offered by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly said its drug had achieved positive results in liver disease trials, showing how a new class of obesity drugs can offer wider health benefits.

Privately held German pharma group Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma’s survodutide treatment had a “statistically significant improvement” for 83 per cent of patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), compared with a placebo, after a 48-week, mid-stage trial.

Shares in Copenhagen-listed Zealand Pharma rose 26 per cent on Monday morning. The drug is also in late-stage trials for obesity treatment.

MASH is a condition in which the liver builds up excess fat deposits. Formerly known as NASH, the condition is estimated to affect 115mn people worldwide and more than a third of people with obesity. It can lead to cirrhosis, a permanent scarring of the liver.

The wider health benefits of a new class of diabetes and weight loss drugs are considered key to convincing health systems to pay for the treatments, and have led analysts to forecast that the value of the category could exceed $100bn by the end of the decade.

In the past year, Novo Nordisk has become Europe’s largest company by market capitalisation, while Eli Lilly overtook Johnson & Johnson as the world’s most valuable pharma company, on the back of high demand for their diabetes and weight loss drugs.

Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy cut the risk of death by 18 per cent in trial results announced in November, with a 28 per cent fall in the risk of heart attacks.

Eli Lilly also reported positive phase II results for the treatment of MASH this month, while Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy is in late stage trials for the disease area.

Like Wegovy and Mounjaro, survodutide copies a hormone called GLP-1 to reduce appetite. But it also mimics another hormone, glucagon, that speeds up the rate at which patients burn energy.

The company said this secondary hormone has a direct impact in the liver, which “potentially contributes to the improvement of fibrosis”. It also said that there were no unexpected side effects during the trial, including at higher doses of the drug.

“These MASH results show survodutide has the potential to become a best-in-class treatment, and we believe its true differentiator is the action of the glucagon receptor agonism which works directly on the liver,” said Carinne Brouillon, head of human pharma at Boehringer Ingelheim.

The company plans to “move forward as quickly as possible” with further trials in MASH for the drug.

“These data position survodutide as a potential leading treatment for a population with great unmet medical needs, and will bring hope to people living with MASH and with fibrosis,” said Dr Arun Sanyal, a Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine professor and principal investigator of the phase II trial.

Copenhagen-based Zealand Pharma partnered with Boehringer Ingelheim a decade ago to develop the survodutide drug. Zealand expects 10 per cent royalties from any eventual sales of the product.

Speaking to the Financial Times last month, Zealand Pharma chief executive Adam Steensberg said that competitors could challenge Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly because of the range of diseases associated with obesity.

“There are 220 diseases associated with obesity,” he said. “In the future, of course, there need to be more choices.”