Monthly weight loss drug helps people lose 20% of body weight, trial finds

A monthly weight loss medication of AMGEN has helped people lose around 20% of their body weight, according to the results of a phase 2 clinical trial.

If it is approved, the drug, called marititide, could make Amgen the first new participant in a market which was dominated by Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, and Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound.

These powerful weight loss and type 2 diabetes drugs are all GLP-1 drugs. The maritide is also, but differs in that it also contains a monoclonal antibody, which helps the medication to stay in the body longer so that people can take it monthly rather than every week.

“It is always easier for patients to have to take something only once a month,” said Dr. Michelle Ponder, an assistant medicine professor at the Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina who was not involved in Amgen’s test. “Many patients we see in endocrinology are patients with diabetes, and therefore they would take several insulin shots per day. And therefore, each last blow is important, even if they are three shots per month.”

Amgen’s results were published on Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in Chicago.

The trial included nearly 600 adults divided into two groups: people with type 2 diabetes and obesity, and people with obesity alone.

The participants obtained one of the three doses of maritid or a placebo, taken once a month for a year. Some of the people in the obesity group started at a lower dose that has gradually increased over several weeks.

The test revealed that participants in only obesity who caused maritid to be lost up to 20% of their body weight, on average, after 52 weeks, against only 2.6% in the placebo group. Among participants with diabetes, people who made the maritid lose up to 17% of their body weight, on average, against 1.4% in the placebo group.

The results place the maritide tied with Wegovy, which reduced body weight by around 15% after 68 weeks in trials in people without diabetes, and Zepbound, which resulted in average weight loss of 22.5% after 72 weeks. (These are not direct comparisons, however, because the drugs have not been tested against each other in the head-to-head tests.)

Beyond the weight loss, the maritid also lowered the A1C – a key marker of blood sugar – of 2.2 percentage points in people with diabetes. Ozempic and Mounjaro saw A1C discounts of approximately 1.5 to 2 percentage points in the tests.

Participants also experienced improvements in risk factors for heart disease, including blood pressure, inflammation and cholesterol levels.

Ponder said all GLP-1 drugs have shown heart benefits, probably due to the amount of weight loss that patients have suffered.

The side effects reported for maritid were similar to those observed with other GLP-1 drugs, mainly gastrointestinal problems.

Dr. Jay Bradner, executive vice-president of AMGEN’s research and development, said that weight loss with the maritid had not yet reached a tray, suggesting the additional weight loss potential with longer treatment.

The company also tests the medication with a dosage of every month. The first results, said Bradner, showed that weight loss was comparable to the monthly version, although patients have reported more side effects.

A growing field

Maritide is part of the next generation of very effective treatments for diabetes and weight loss which aim to offer greater weight loss with fewer side effects than semaglutide (medicine in Ozempic and Wegovy) and shooting (in Mounjaro and Zepbound).

Most of these new drugs are still probably several years of approval. Amgen, for example, plans to execute a 72 -week phase 3 trial of Maritide as its next step, said Bradner.

Lilly and Novo Nordisk also presented results at the Diabetes Conference.

An experimental drug from Lilly, Elovalintide, led to an average weight loss of 11.3% over 12 weeks in a phase 1 study, according to new results published last week at the diabetes conference.

Unlike the drugs that target the GLP-1 hormone, Elolisalintide targets amyline, a hormone that slows the emptying of the stomach. Lilly said that the side effects of the drug were less common compared to the other drugs he studied, with 8% of patients on the drug reporting nausea and 4% vomiting.

Another medicine from Lilly, called Retrrutide, has been demonstrated to help people lose around 24% of their body weight, on average, in a mid-term test. A phase 3 test should be completed later this year.

Lilly also found that a combination of semaglutide and bimagrum – a monoclonal antibody that promotes muscle growth – has helped preserve lean muscle mass in patients in a phase 2 trial.

And the experimental weight loss pill of the company, Orforglipron, turned out to drop A1C in people with type 2 diabetes, according to the results of the phase 3 trial published on Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The new NOVO Nordisk drug CAGRISEMA led to greater weight loss than semaglutide, according to the results presented on Sunday at the conference.

The two phase 3 trials tested Cagrisema – a combination of semaglutide and another drug called Cagriloutide – in more than 4,500 adults with obesity. In people without diabetes, those who took Cagrisema lost an average of 20.4% of their body weight after 68 weeks. Among adults with type 2 diabetes, average weight loss was 13.7%.

DRE Shauna Levy, an obesity medical specialist and medical director of the Tulane Bariatric Center in New Orleans, said that the growing number of options is a bonus for patients who do not respond well to one of the existing treatments.

“It has been thinking for a long time that obesity is an easy -to -treat disease, but in reality, it is actually very difficult,” said Levy. “It will not be a good answer for patients, so the more we must process the tools to treat the disease, the more you will manage to eliminate or reduce this epidemic considerably.”

Dr. Christopher McGowan, a gastroenterologist who runs a weight loss clinic in Cary, North Carolina, said growing competition could also push medication manufacturers to reduce their prices.

Wegovy and Zepbound, for example, can cost patients more than $ 1,000 per month. But in recent months, Novo Nordisk and Lilly have brought options at a lower cost for those who pay their pockets.

“Access, affordability, remains barrier n ° 1 for patients who get one of these drugs,” he said.

Ponder, from Duke University, said: “The more options, the better. Even if new options are out which are not necessarily stronger, the simple fact of having an additional manufacturer that makes the medication is really useful to extend access to patients.”

CORRECTION (June 23, 2025, 4:29 pm): an earlier version of this article disturbed which drug manufacturer studies the combination of semaglutide and bimagrum. It’s Eli Lilly, not Novo Nordisk.