STAT+: Can amylin drugs best Wegovy and Zepbound? Companies bet on next big obesity target
Nearly two decades ago, a small company called Amylin Pharmaceuticals saw that its first commercial product, a diabetes treatment targeting receptors of the amylin hormone, led to weight loss in early clinical trials.
To achieve the weight loss, though, the drug had to be injected three times every day, making it “essentially a non-starter from a commercial point of view,” said David Kendall, an executive director at Amylin at the time. The company ultimately didn’t pursue an indication in weight loss.
Instead, another Amylin drug caught on with the biopharma industry — Byetta, a diabetes treatment that was the world’s first commercial GLP-1 therapy, and eventually paved the way for the blockbusters Wegovy and Zepbound.
