In this article PFE Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Pfizer on Thursday said it will move forward with a once-daily version of its weight loss pill, danuglipron, after it saw "encouraging" data in an ongoing early-stage trial. The company evaluated several once-daily formulations of the drug and identified one with "the most favorable profile." Pfizer said it plans to conduct studies in the second half of the year to identify the ideal dose of the drug.
Pfizer is one of several drugmakers racing to win a slice of the market for a highly popular class of weight loss and diabetes drugs called GLP-1 agonists. Some analysts expect the industry to be worth roughly $100 billion by the end of the decade. Shares of the company rose more than 3% in premarket trading Thursday.
Pfizer in December discontinued a twice-daily version of danuglipron after patients had trouble tolerating the drug in a mid-stage study. At the time, the pharmaceutical giant said phase one trial data on the once-daily version would "inform a path forward." But investors have been pessimistic about the company's potential in the GLP-1 space since it scrapped a different once-daily pill in June 2023.
Those were among a string of setbacks Pfizer faced last year on top of the rapid decline of its Covid business, which battered its stock. Still, Pfizer has other experimental drugs in earlier stages of development, including one for obesity . The company has not.
