This biotech is working on a GLP-1 pill that could be better than the Wegovy version

By Jaimy Lee

Structure Therapeutics said its experimental pill helped people lose about 16% of their body weight after about a year of treatment

Structure Therapeutics is one of several companies developing new GLP-1 pills to help people lose weight.

This article has been updated to correct the comparable weight loss and discontinuation rate for the Wegovy pill.

Shares of Structure Therapeutics rallied 5.4% on Monday after the company said higher doses of its experimental GLP-1 pill led to greater weight loss.

The biotech company said patients taking aleniglipron for 11 months in a Phase 2 trial had placebo-adjusted weight loss of 16.3% for the 180 mg dose and 16.0% for the 240 mg dose.

Late last year, Structure (GPCR) shared data for the same drug in the same trial, and cited placebo-adjusted weight loss of 11.3% after nine months at the 120 mg dose. Weeks later, it announced a royalty and licensing deal with Roche (CH:ROG) that gave the biotech $100 million.

Read: Taking the new Wegovy pill every day is really complicated. Will patients stick with it?

Though aleniglipron has yet to enter a Phase 3 trial, the Phase 2 results appear to position the drug as a front-runner among other available oral GLP-1 options in clinical trials or under review at the Food and Drug Administration. Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill, which was approved in December, had 16.6% weight loss in a Phase 3 trial after 16 months, while people taking 36 mg - the highest dose - of Eli Lilly's orforglipron lost 11.2% of their body weight in Phase 3 trials. The FDA is set to decide whether to approve orforglipron by mid-April. Like aleniglipron, it is also a nonpeptide GLP-1 pill.

"Even at the 180mg dose, [aleniglipron]'s efficacy looks to be highly competitive and better than orforglipron and the Wegovy pill," BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan David Seigerman told investors on Monday morning.

Structure also said that few patients - between 2% and 3.4% - discontinued treatment due to side effects, a common concern for GLP-1s, particularly the oral versions of these drugs. Up to 10.3% of patients in Lilly's trial stopped taking orforglipron, while up to 6.9% of patients taking the Wegovy pill in a clinical trial discontinued treatment.

The biotech has said it plans to start a Phase 3 trial for aleniglipron this year.

Structure's stock is down 22% since Jan. 1, while the State Street SPDR S&P Biotech ETF XBI is up about 1%.

-Jaimy Lee

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03-17-26 1520ET