COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Novo Nordisk said on Monday an older oral version of its semaglutide drug failed to meet its main goal in late-stage trials testing whether the medicine can slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients, sending its share price down 10%.
The data is key for Novo because Alzheimer’s disease would be a large new market for GLP-1 medicines like semaglutide after blockbuster success in the treatment of obesity and diabetes. Alzheimer’s patients currently have limited treatment options.
The drug being tested is Novo’s Rybelsus, a pill currently approved only for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Both Rybelsus and Novo’s blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy are based on the same active ingredient, semaglutide, a GLP-1 medicine.
“While semaglutide did not demonstrate efficacy in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, the extensive body of evidence supporting semaglutide continues to provide benefits for individuals with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and related comorbidities,” Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange said in a statement.
The results from the two trials of early-stage patients, called EVOKE and EVOKE+, mark another setback for the Danish drugmaker, which boomed on the success of blockbuster medicine Wegovy before slowing sales growth and a tumbling share price prompted a CEO change and mass layoffs.
The setback reinforces analyst scepticism about Novo’s Alzheimer’s ambitions, with UBS having estimated just a 10% probability of success.
The company’s Executive Vice President for Product and Portfolio Strategy Ludovic Helfgott had described the Alzheimer’s trials as a “lottery ticket” in September, a reference to its uncertain prospects yet huge potential.
Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias affect more than 55 million people globally. There is no cure.
(Writing by Stine Jacobsen and Maggie Fick; Editing by Jan Harvey, Terje Solsvik and Anna Ringstrom)
