AMGN Rises as CEO Celebrates Growth in Experimental Obesity Drug

Amgen Inc.'s shares ( AMGN ) rose by 15.9% when the market opened on Friday, marking its biggest intraday rise since July 2009. The company has emerged as a potential competitor to Eli Lilly & Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S, which currently dominate the weight-loss market. Demand for anti-obesity drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy is so strong that Intelligence's estimate for $80 billion in annual sales by 2030 looks conservative. William Blair analyst Matt Phipps sees MariTide as having multi-blockbuster potential, boosting his rating on Amgen stock to outperform.

Shares of Denmark's Novo Nordisk fell as much as 5.3% after the Amgen CEO's comments. Optimism over towering sales of its Wegovy and Ozempic drugs have pushed Novo's market value above $500 billion, reinforcing its position as Europe's most valuable listed company. The stock has more than quadrupled since the start of 2020.

MariTide has excited investors because it's taken less frequently than the top-selling treatments from Novo and Lilly. Patients given a monthly injection of the drug lost up to 14.5% of their body weight in 12 weeks, according to a small early-stage study published in February in the journal Nature Metabolism. Some people kept weight off for up to 150 days after stopping the drug, the findings showed.

Amgen ( AMGN ) is already investing in building out production capacity for MariTide, even though it's still in mid-stage studies and hasn't been submitted for regulatory approval. Amgen is planning late-stage studies in obesity, obesity-related conditions, and diabetes, likely delivered in a handheld autoinjector used monthly. Amgen will focus on MariTide and discontinue developing another earlier-stage drug called AMG 786.