Replies to post #250803 on Biotech Values

[jbog]

VKTX has an EV of roughly $9.1B,

On one hand it seems silly at this point of development, but if you consider that someone would buy todays Cabbage Patch Doll (BitCoin) for $57k , Viking's price might be cheap.

[Mufaso]

VKTX - Barron’s take from yesterday on VK2735 had good commentary especially for competitive comparisons to both Zepbound (tirzepatide) and their next gen “triple G” known as Retraglutide. The comment on Retraglutide saying V2735 was about the same efficacy is very important as that was previously thought to have offered a giant step forward in efficacy. Given VK2735 doesn't have the tolerability and importantly safety issues that Retraglutide has (e.g. arrhythmia), VK2735 has to be seen as a threat to LLY albeit some time from now.

Watch Out, Eli Lilly. Viking Therapeutics Has a Serious Weight-Loss Contender.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/viking-therapeutics-stock-weight-loss-drug-0c25a038

Here are some select quotes:

… VK2735 lost 14.7% of their body weight on average after just 13 weeks. The loss was 13.1% on a placebo-adjusted basis.

Though the trial wasn’t large, the result appears to be better over that brief period than the most effective drug currently on the market, Lilly’s Zepbound.

While patients on Zepbound eventually lost 22.5% of their body weight on average after 72 weeks in a Phase 3 study, 13 weeks into that study, the average weight loss was only around 7% to 8%. (for zepbound)

Lilly’s next-generation injection, retatrutide, seems to have performed just about as well as Viking’s VK2735 at 13 weeks in a mid-stage trial. That drug is still under development.

In addition to the startling efficacy results, Viking said that drug’s safety and tolerability was “encouraging,” and that discontinuation rates were slightly higher among those who received a placebo than among those who took VK2735.

“We view the data as a clear win for VKTX,” Leerink Partners analyst Thomas Smith wrote Tuesday morning. ”The >13% [placebo]-adjusted weight reduction is highly meaningful, exceeding [management’s] bar for success and investors bar for success vs. competing agents.”