Zealand Pharma seeks to address common side effects of weight loss medications

Denmark-based drugmaker Zealand Pharma said Tuesday that its experimental weight-loss drug could help patients lose weight with fewer side effects than obesity drugs currently on the market.

The company said only about a third of patients who took doses of up to 4.8 milligrams of its drug petrelintide in an early clinical trial experienced nausea – one of the most common side effects of the popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Zealand presented the new findings at the ObesityWeek industry conference in San Antonio. Bloomberg reports.

Zealand offers Petrelinde as an alternative for patients who cannot tolerate GLP-1 treatments, which can result in common side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Zealand Pharma reported in June that there were no serious adverse events during the study and only one of 48 participants discontinued the study due to side effects.

“These results support our belief that petrelintide is very well tolerated and may have an important role as an alternative to incretin-based therapies in the treatment of overweight and obesity,” Zealand Chief Medical Officer David Kendall said in a press release at Time .

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Zealand’s petrelintide works differently than Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs because it does not mimic the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). Instead, it mimics a Hormone that is secreted together with insulin in the pancreas that increases satiety, known as amylin.

Zealand reported back in June that patients who took a high dose of petrelintide for 16 weeks lost weight on average 8.6% of their weight. For comparison: A clinical study with Novo Nordisks (NVO+0.31%) Wegovy has found that it helps users lose track of things 15% of their body weight over 68 weeks.

According to Bloomberg, the company plans to begin mid-stage testing of the drug this year and expects it could hit the market in 2029 or 2030.

In August, the company announced that it was looking for a possible partnership with a large pharmaceutical company to support the development, manufacture and sale of petrelintide.

GLP-1s are a class of diabetes and obesity medications that mimic a hormone that regulates blood sugar and suppresses appetite. The demand for these drugs has driven Ozempic manufacturers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly (LLY+0.01%), the manufacturer of Mounjaro and Zepbound, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Now several pharmaceutical companies are working to bring new drugs to market to meet the demand. In addition to Zealand Pharma, Viking Therapeutics, Regeneron, Amgen and Pfizer are all developing new weight loss drugs.