Feb 2 (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk said on Monday its experimental next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema showed greater reductions in blood sugar and body weight than its blockbuster Wegovy in a late‑stage trial of patients with type 2 diabetes.
Novo said the highest dose of CagriSema helped trial participants lose about 14.2% of their body weight after 68 weeks, compared with 10.2% for those who received Wegovy, assuming all of them adhered to the treatment.
CagriSema is a weekly injection combining cagrilintide, which mimics pancreatic hormone amylin, and semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy that mimics the gut hormone GLP-1.
The Danish drugmaker had positioned CagriSema as a more potent successor to Wegovy and a powerful contender to Eli Lilly’s rival drug Zepbound. However, weaker-than-expected weight loss in two prior studies disappointed investors and prompted Novo to initiate a new late-stage trial in June.
Monday’s data also showed CagriSema led to higher blood sugar reduction compared to Wegovy.
HbA1c, a marker of long-term blood sugar levels, fell by 1.91 percentage points in those who received a combination of 2.4 milligram each of cagrilintide and semaglutide compared with 1.76 percentage points with those who received 2.4 milligrams of semaglutide alone, Novo said.
The trial included 2,728 people with type 2 diabetes who were on other standard treatments for the condition. The patients were randomly chosen to receive either CagriSema, cagrilintide, semaglutide or a placebo.
(Reporting by Essi Lehto and Mariam Sunny, editing by Terje Solsvik and Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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