A stronger Ozempic, Wegovy sales boom, and Hims' generic weight loss drug: Pharma news roundup

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that it is proposing a new rule to stop the use of an ingredient in popular over-the-counter (OTC) cold and allergy medications. The rule would remove oral phenylephrine from the administration’s list of approved active ingredients that can be used in OTC drugs like NyQuil (PG), Benadryl (JNJ), and Mucinex. Following a review of available data, the agency determined that phenylephrine, when taken orally, does not actually work as a nasal decongestant.

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Novo Nordisk (NVO) teased some new details about a potential Ozempic successor during a call with investors Tuesday. The Danish pharma giant fielded several questions from interested analysts about its next-gen GLP-1 medication CagriSema, regarding its efficacy, safety, and supply chain.

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The millennial-skewed telehealth platform Hims & Hers (HIMS) announced this week that it will start offering customers a generic version of liraglutide, an older GLP-1 weight loss drug, next year. The news comes as some patients still struggle to fill prescriptions of the most advanced branded GLP-1 treatments on the market, like Zepbound, Wegovy, and Ozempic.

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Sales of Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy continue to soar, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The Danish pharma giant posted its third-quarter earnings report early Wednesday reporting that sales of Wegovy skyrocketed 79% to 17.3 billion Danish Krone ($2.5 billion) in the third quarter of 2024, compared with in 9.6 billion Danish Krone ($1.37 billion) during the the same period last year. The drug beat analysts’ expectations of $2.3 billion, according to a consensus estimate from FactSet.

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The Denmark-based drug maker Zealand Pharma said Tuesday that its experimental weight-loss drug could help patients lose pounds with fewer side effects than current anti-obesity medications on the market. The company said that only about a third of patients who took up to 4.8-milligram doses of its drug, petrelintide, during an early-stage clinical trial experienced nausea — one of the most common side effects of popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Zealand revealed the new finding at the industry conference ObesityWeek in San Antonio.

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Novo Nordisk (NVO), the maker of blockbuster weight-loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, has entered an agreement with Denmark-based Ascendis Pharma (ASND) to leverage the latter’s advanced drug delivery technology. The partnership aims to speed up the development of a long-acting, monthly GLP-1 drug. Current GLP-1 medications on the market are administered as once-weekly injections.

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Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) released new clinical trial data early this week for its experimental weight-loss drugs, which include a highly anticipated oral pill. The company reported that in a small phase 1 clinical study, patients who took a daily 100-milligram dose of Viking’s weight-loss pill lost an average of up to 6.8% of their body weight over 28 days when adjusted for those taking a placebo. William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh noted on Monday that Viking’s results surpassed Wall Street expectations and outperformed those of Novo Nordisk’s experimental weight-loss pill, amycretin.

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It seems like every day, a new study emerges linking Ozempic and similar drugs to new health benefits. Ozempic is part of a drug class known as GLP-1 medications, which mimic gut hormones that help regulate blood sugar and suppress appetite. These drugs have become popular for their effectiveness in treating obesity and type 2 diabetes, but researchers are uncovering even more potential uses. Take a look at the latest research uncovering surprising new uses for GLP-1 drugs.

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