By Josh Nathan-Kazis
A frenetic morning of biotech news on Monday is weighing on the stocks of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the two behemoths of the obesity market.
First came new data from Structure Therapeutics, an obesity biotech. It said patients on its weight-loss pill aleniglipron had lost 14.2% of their body weight over 36 weeks, while patients on a placebo gained 1%.
Then came news of earlier-stage results from a study of an experimental injection being developed by WAVE Life Sciences. It found that patients who received a single dose of the drug, called WVE-007, saw a 4.5% reduction in total body fat over three months, plus a 3.2% increase in lean mass.
The WAVE drug is in the earliest stages of clinical testing. Even the Structure drug has yet to begin the Phase 3 trials that would be the basis for a potential approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
But taken together, they show that threats to Lilly and Novo's dominance of the obesity market are on the way.
The market for the new, highly effective wave of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs has been shared between Novo and Lilly since the launch of Lilly's Zepbound in 2023. But even in that short time, the market has shifted significantly: Novo has ceded its early dominance to Lilly, which now wins the majority of U.S. GLP-1 obesity prescriptions.
Investors have debated for years whether the products from the coming crop of obesity-focused biotechs have a shot at eventually unseating Novo and Lilly. In addition to their approved products, both of the incumbents have pipelines of promising experimental drugs.
On Monday, the biotechs looked more like a threat than before. Novo's American depositary receipt was down 2.7%, while Lilly stock fell 1.4%, bringing its slide since it hit a record high on the day after Thanksgiving to 10%. The S&P 500 was down 0.2%.
The obesity biotechs, meanwhile, were on fire. Structure shares were up 100%. Analysts said that its weight-loss results were much better than expected.
While the existing GLP-1 drugs are administered via injections, Structure's aleniglipron is a once-daily pill that would notionally compete with weight-loss pills to be launched soon from Lilly and Novo. Lilly's pill, orforglipron, is set to be a market-leader, but Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger wrote early Monday that aleniglipron's efficacy looked similar to orforglipron's.
GLP-1 drugs like aleniglipron and orforglipron often cause nausea and other gastrointestinal side effects, and Risinger wrote that tolerability for aleniglipron looked worse than for orforglipron. Still, he also said that tolerability for aleniglipron looked better at lower doses.
The Structure results were "meaningfully better than expectations," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Prakhar Argawal wrote. "Several bear theses on aleniglipron are now gone," Argawal wrote. "No debate at all on efficacy, tolerability is manageable with a lower starting dose."
That sets up a Phase 3 study, which the company wants to start next year.
Shares of WAVE, meanwhile, were up 125% on Monday morning. Wave's WVE-007 isn't a GLP-1, but targets a gene associated with obesity. The Phase 1 data the company disclosed Monday came from the first human trial of the treatment. The company plans to test it as a stand-alone weight-loss treatment and in combination with other drugs.
The pitch for WVE-007 is that it would be a one-time treatment that can reduce weight while also preventing muscle loss. Monday's data made it appear as if the drug might live up to that promise.
Mizuho analyst Graig Suvannavejh wrote early Monday that the 4% placebo-adjusted fat loss the drug delivered was better than the 2% to 2.5% loss he had thought was the minimal threshold for success.
"This first-in-human data looks great," Suvannavejh wrote. Now, WAVE says it is planning Phase 2 trials of the drug.
Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 08, 2025 12:46 ET (17:46 GMT)
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