Viking Therapeutics Inc.’s stock went up as much as 3.8% early Friday as people got more excited about the data the company will show at Obesity Week on its oral weight-loss drug.
The stock VKTX 0.47% has been on a tear this year, rising almost 300% so far in 2024. It is in the unique situation of having all buy ratings from the 13 analysts who follow it on FactSet.
The stock has gone up about 30% since last week, when the company reported its quarterly earnings. The report showed that the company had enough cash on hand to pay for important clinical studies.
It had just barely held on to a 1% gain in the last half-hour of trading on Friday.
The company’s VK2735 oral therapy showed promise in the Phase 1 study that is currently going on. After 28 days, participants who took a 40-milligram dose lost 3.3% of their body weight compared to those who took a placebo.
The pill was also safe and well-tolerated, and no reports of vomiting or diarrhoea, which can happen with other treatments. This gives people hope that bigger doses will work even better.
AT Obesity Week, which is put on by the Obesity Society and takes place Nov. 3-6 in San Antonio, Texas, the company is likely to give information on the higher doses of 60, 80, and 100 milligrammes. Viking is also going to show information about the injectable form of VK2735 that is being tried in a Phase 2 trial right now.
The information from the study should allow Jefferies analysts to move on to a Phase 2 trial for the pill version.
In a note to clients, analysts led by Roger Song said, “We believe the posters’ results will support the development plan further, including monthly subcutaneous into Phase 2 and oral higher dose into Phase 2. This will also solidify the company’s class leading position (clinical profile and development timeline) among new-gen peptide incretins.”
Experts think that a pill form of the treatment will be hugely important because it would be much easier to use than the present injectable forms. A lot of companies, including Novo Nordisk, the market leader
B -0.94% NOVO.
NVO -0.01% and Eli Lilly & Co.
LLY -1.30%, are making progress on a weight-loss pill.
Jefferies is sure that Viking’s stock has a lot more room to go up. The study team thinks the stock should be worth $110, which is 49% more than what it is now.
Oppenheimer has set a price target of $138, which is 86% higher than the current price. This is the highest price target among FactSet experts.
Jefferies thinks that VK2735 will bring in about $12 billion in U.S. sales at its peak.
Based on talks they have had with investors, Cantor analysts said that scalability is still a very important question. Analysts led by Prakhar Agrawal pointed out that Novo Nordisk has not released an oral version of its semaglutide even though the Phase 3 trial was positive. The company is waiting for data on subcutaneous amycretin before making a choice.
There might be problems with making peptide drugs available in doses higher than 50 mg a day because they need a lot of the active ingredient, the experts wrote in a note to clients.
Because of the problem of scalability, some people think that a big pharmaceutical business might want to buy Viking.
As with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic and Lilly’s Mounjaro, Viking’s injectable and oral treatments work by imitating the effects of GLP-1, a hormone in the gut that can help control blood sugar levels and make people feel less hungry. A glucagon-like peptide is what GLP stands for.
Analysts at Jefferies also expect Viking to provide information that supports a once-monthly dose based on the treatment’s PK profile. This stands for pharmacokinetics, which is the study of how the body reacts to drugs over the course of exposure.
The company said that the injectable form might be able to handle dosing once a month.
