(Bloomberg) -- The obesity drug market will lack real competition for “many years,” according to the chief executive officer of Zealand Pharma A/S, one of the companies developing new treatments in the booming market.
Adam Steensberg says he believes that the eventual competition that emerges will be led by alternatives to the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs produced by Novo Nordisk A/S and Eli Lilly & Co, according to an interview on Thursday after the Danish pharmaceutical company published earnings.
Zealand is positioning itself as a contender in an obesity market that Goldman Sachs predicts will reach $130 billion by 2030. The company’s amylin-based compound, petrelintide, has shown positive results in an early-stage trial, sparking expectations of a potential launch in late-2029.
“We still haven’t seen how the dynamics of a normal market will play out, and I think it will continue to be like this for many years to come,” Steensberg said.
The CEO said production issues in the market will take five to seven years to be resolved. After that, it may even face overcapacity because of the major investments being made.
Zealand’s shares rose by as much as 6.4% on Thursday in Copenhagen after the company said it would spend more on obesity development. The drugmaker, which is now looking for a partner to help progress its weight-loss drug candidate, has tapped into the equity market twice this year to take advantage of the interest in its pipeline.
Companies like Zealand still have time and room to enter the market, Steensberg said, but it will be more difficult for those who try to compete on GLP-1-based drugs, given there are already two in the market that “resemble each other.”
“If you’re going to try to make a better GLP-1, you really have to show on all parameters that you’re better and you’re at least as safe,” Steensberg said, adding that there’s “an opportunity to create a new category and not just make more GLP medicines like the ones we are seeing at the moment.”
Unlike GLP-1 medicines such as Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic, Zealand’s petrelintide targets obesity via amylin, a hormone released by the pancreas together with insulin. Novo and others including AstraZeneca Plc and Eli Lilly are also developing next-generation products based on amylin.
--With assistance from Ashleigh Furlong.
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