Swiss pharma giant Roche to accelerate Wegovy rival drugs after positive trial data

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said Monday it is accelerating the development of its Wegovy rival weight loss drugs following promising early stage trial data.

The company’s two obesity drug candidates are progressing to the next phase of trials and could come to market within the next few years, providing a potential pill-based alternative to Novo Nordisk‘s Wegovy and Eli Lilly‘s Zepbound weight loss injections.

“We are fast-tracking the clinical development of our obesity portfolio with the aim to bring these medications to patients faster than anticipated,” the spokesperson told CNBC via email.

The company did not reveal its new timeline, saying it would provide an update “when appropriate.” However, in an FT interview published earlier Monday, CEO Thomas Schinecker indicated that the firm’s first obesity drug could come to market “significantly faster than people are expecting,” potentially by 2028.

Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO Teresa Graham previously told CNBC in December that she expected the company would be able to bring the products to market from 2030 onwards.

Roche’s CT-388 drug is now entering phase two trials after results published in May pointed to its efficacy in helping patients with obesity lose 18.8% of their weight after 24 weeks relative to those who received a placebo.

The company’s experimental once-daily pill CT-996 will enter phase two tests next year after trials earlier this month showed that it resulted in a placebo-adjusted average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks in obese patients without Type 2 diabetes.

Both CT-388 and CT-996 were acquired as part of Roche’s purchase of U.S. biotech company Carmot Therapeutics, which completed in January.

The promising results could see Roche emerge as a potential rival to obesity drug pioneers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Schinecker told CNBC last week that he expects the company to eventually offer a suite of obesity medications.

“We have a number of things in our pipeline that really can differentiate us from other players,” Schinecker told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

“We do believe we have two next generation GLP-1/GIPs that have a best in disease potential,” he said of the obesity drugs.

“We also have a number of different medicines in our own portfolio that we can combine with [obesity drugs],” he added, highlighting GYM329 as an example of a drug which counters muscle loss, a key side effect of weight loss.