Sept 22 (Reuters) – Viking Therapeutics said patients shifted to a less frequent dosing regimen of its experimental obesity treatment showed superior weight loss maintenance in a study than those on placebo, sending its shares up 40% before the bell.
The company said on Tuesday that patients who switched to an every-other-week dosing of VK2735 maintained up to 97% of the weight they had lost during an initial 21-week treatment period, while those who moved to a monthly dosing retained up to 90% of their prior weight loss over the following 12 weeks.
Viking said it plans to study oral maintenance dosing in a future part of the trial.
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
