Pfizer weakens against competitors; company under pressure over flawed obesity drug📉

Shares of global pharmaceutical company Pfizer (PFE.US) are down nearly 4 per cent in today's session following the end of work on an experimental obesity drug (lotiglipron), which the company said caused elevated levels of an important enzyme in clinical trials that could put it at risk of liver disease. 

Pfizer said it would instead focus on another oral obesity drug, danuglipron, which is fully enrolled in phase II clinical trials. 

Investors reacted nervously to this announcement, as the potential of this market is huge, and the competition itself (Eli Lilly (LLY.US) (Mounjaro) and Novo Nordisk (NOVOB.DK) (Wegovy)) are also working hard to bring the best version of the drug to market. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that the obesity drug could eventually bring the company $10 billion a year.

However, the announcement to move to an oral formulation is not ideal from an investment point of view. As analysts report, the market for oral treatment in this area appears to be dominated by Eli Lilly's pill. Overweight or obese patients who took orforglipron (Eli Lilly's oral obesity drug) once a day lost 14.7 per cent of their body weight after 36 weeks, according to the results of a mid-phase clinical trial the company published on Friday.

Pfizer (PFE.US) stock chart, W1 interval. The company's shares opened today's trading with a sizable downward gap, which is testing the level of recent local lows.  Source: xStation 5