Roche rises on the stock market thanks to a new slimming drug
The research is part of the dowry won by the Swiss group when it acquired Carmot Therapeutics for $3.1 billion in January
3' min read
3' min read
Roche enters the slimming drug competition and shares jumped nearly five percentage points on the stock exchange. The new experimental loss pill studied by the Swiss weight group showed significant efficacy results in an early-stage study on patients suffering from obesity. This was enough to attract purchases on the stock, which is listed on the Zurich stock exchange, up 7.4 per cent to the highest level since March 2020 for the shares. In contrast, shares in Novo Nordisk, maker of the anti-obesity drug Wegovy, fell as much as 5.2% in Copenhagen in view of growing competition in one of its core businesses.
The new slimming drug
.Patients who took the oral drug CT-996 once a day for four weeks lost on average more than 7 per cent of their initial weight, compared to just over 1 per cent weight loss in patients who received a placebo, according to the Swiss pharmaceutical company.
The main results of the Roche pill 'suggest a competitive profile', Jefferies analysts wrote in a report, adding that they expect further details on possible side effects among the 25 study participants suffering from obesity. Roche, for its part, said that based on the current results, it is confident that the pill in the study can move on to the next stage of drug development.
The results of the new research come after a series of missteps by the group, which had recently had to cash in on failures in cancer and Alzheimer's drug trials. These are two of the areas in which big pharma groups are focusing their investments, not only in internal research, but also in corporate venture capital deals, such as that of Novo Nordisk on Asceneuron, and the acquisition of biotech companies, such as Pfizer's $43 billion acquisition of Seagen.
Roche itself acquired research into the anti-obesity drug among others when it acquired Carmot Therapeutics for $3.1 billion last January. The deal opened up 'a whole new perspective', Roche had stressed earlier this year, and the group's research division is now working to identify other experimental compounds to be used in combination with those developed by Carmot.
