A high dose of Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug Wegovy led patients to lose substantial weight in a clinical trial, but still less than what’s been seen with Zepbound.

People who stayed on a 7.2 milligram weekly dose of semaglutide lost around 20% of their body weight over 72 weeks.

Fresh from a $400 million series A round, Kailera Therapeutics has shown off phase 2 data on an obesity candidate it believes can muscle in on the market. Kailera and partner Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals linked the injectable GLP-1/GIP receptor dual agonist to 22.8% mean weight loss after 36 weeks.

Wegovy, the weight-loss brand of semaglutide, has a recommended maintenance dose of 2.4 mg. Novo ran the Phase III STEP UP trial to evaluate the effect of increasing the maximum dose to 7.2 mg. The trial randomized 1,407 adults with obesity, but not diabetes, to receive either 7.2 mg or 2.4 mg of semaglutide or placebo.

Novo Nordisk said a higher dose of its drug Wegovy led to greater weight loss in patients during a late-stage trial, but the results fell short of the weight loss achieved with Eli Lilly's rival drug Zepbound,

Tripling the dosage of the Wegovy weight-loss drug leads to more weight loss, Novo Nordisk said Friday. The Danish drugmaker announced results from a Phase 3B trial of semaglutide at a 7.2 milligram dosage,