Altimmune jumps as experimental obesity drug shows benefit in alcohol use disorder study
ALT•Pemvidutide meets main goal in mid-stage alcohol use disorder study
Shares of drug developer Altimmune
- rose about 19% to $3.51 in premarket trading after the company said its experimental weight-loss drug, pemvidutide, met the main goal of a mid-stage study in patients with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder.
- The drug helped significantly reduce heavy drinking days compared with placebo, the main goal of the study, Altimmune said.
- Nearly two-thirds of patients treated with pemvidutide also achieved a two-level reduction in their WHO-RDL, a secondary goal of the study.
- WHO-RDL categorizes average daily or weekly alcohol consumption into no risk, low risk, medium risk, high risk, and very high risk.
- Pemvidutide belongs to the same class of drugs as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound, known as GLP-1 agonists.
- It is also being tested to treat metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, or MASH, a serious type of fatty liver disease.
- Up to the last close, Altimmune stock had fallen 18% year to date.
