But wait, there's more: VK2735 may beat current obesity drugs

Drugmakers may have new, very expensive obesity-control drugs in the pipeline that will work better than the ones available today.

Executives from one biotech firm, Viking Therapeutics, told securities analysts during a conference call Wednesday that early trials show that the injected version of its VK2735 drug helped study obese participants lose up to about 13% of their weight after just 13 weeks, with no serious side effects and no sign that weight loss was slowing down at the end of that period.

Study participants who took a pill form of the drug every day for eight weeks lost up to about 5.3% of their weight after eight weeks, with no serious side effects and no sign of flattening out of weight loss, executives said.

The drug appears to be working better than today’s hot new obesity-fighting drugs, the GLP-1 agonists like Wegovy, Zepbound and Saxenda, because it combines a GLP-1 agonist with an agonist of the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor, or GIP receptor, executives said.

Brian Lian, the company’s chief executive officer, declined to give details about discussions with pharmaceutical company relationship discussions.

“We’ve been consistent with our receptivity to interests and opportunities and we remain so,” Lian said. “In the meantime, we are well capitalized and focused on execution of the development programs.”

The dual-action drug is moving into a testing phase that will give 3,000 people a chance to take the drug, he said.

Investors reacted by increasing the price of the company’s stock to about $65 per share, from about $50 per share the day before the conference call.

The new dual-action agonists could intensify employer plan sponsors’ discussions about how to balance the cost of controlling obesity with the new drugs with the benefits of using the new drugs to control obesity.

Eventually, effective weight loss drugs could save money by reducing the cost of treating weight-related conditions such as diabetes.

But, today, use of Wegovy and its competitors to fight obesity is a major cause of health plan cost increases, according to PwC analysts.

If all Americans who need the drugs took the drugs at today’s prices, the cost would exceed $1.2 trillion, David Joyner, the president of CVS Health’s CVS Caremark unit, testified at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing on pharmacy benefit managers.

Related: House Republican proposes making PBMs fiduciaries

The spending total Joyner predicted is comparable to what the United States spends today on all forms of health care.