Good afternoon and welcome to the Zealand session of the 44th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. My name is Sophie Graff . I'm an analyst here at J.P. Morgan on the European Pharma and Biotech team. And today it's my pleasure to welcome Adam Steensberg, CEO of Zealand Pharma, to the conference. As a reminder, after the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. So if you'd like to ask a question, raise your hand, and we'll try to get a mic to you so that everyone on the webcast can hear. If you're listening in on the webcast, please submit your questions via the portal so we can address them. With that, over to you, Adam.
Thank you, and great to be here and welcome everyone. So what better way to kickstart what looks to be the most exciting year in Zealand's more than 25 years' history in working in metabolic health? A few weeks ago, we launched our Metabolic Frontier 2030 strategy and ambition to really go in and do our part to address what we consider as the biggest healthcare challenge of our time, and that's the obesity pandemic and all the diseases that follow the obesity pandemic. What I will discuss today is, of course, our focus coming into the year. But also, I just want to remind all of us that we have actually only taken the first baby steps to address this healthcare pandemic with what we have seen playing out in the markets these days. We need significant new innovations if we are to get around it.
Zealand Pharma, if you think about where we're going to take the company in the coming years, it's about becoming a generational biotech leading in metabolic health, changing the landscape and changing the opportunities for the many patients who live with the consequences of the obesity pandemic. I will be making forward-looking statements. So if we think about where Zealand will be in five years from now, then our ambition is to have launched significant new medicines that hold potential to redefine how we think about care for patients living with obesity, both with Survodutide in our partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim and with petrelintide in our partnership with Roche.
These are two very significant pharma players and two companies who differentiate themselves towards many other players in this space by the fact that they have had long-term strategies to come in and do their part to make a difference in the metabolic space, but our ambition as a company goes much beyond just redefining how patients with obesity and metabolic disturbances are being treated near-term. It's also about building the world's most valuable metabolic health pipeline, and I've launched this strategy and this ambition when I launched that in early December. I also shared what I believe is almost what I would call an unfair competitive advantage. What many people have not yet realized when they think about Zealand is that we have been working with metabolic health and peptides for these diseases for more than 25 years.
And with all those data at hand, combining that with what we are now seeing, this revolution in AI and machine learning capabilities gives us a significant opportunity to remain at the forefront of innovation in this space. I have to remind everyone that while AI will come in and introduce efficiencies for everyone, not only in biotech and pharma, the only way where you can create true differentiation towards your competitors is if you have proprietary data that you can train these AI systems on. Otherwise, you have nothing compared to what you don't have a differentiated opportunity compared to what your competitors have. And Zealand has the data. And we have also the ambition to build more and develop more than 10 clinical candidates over the coming five years into the clinic and also establishing industry-leading times from idea to the clinic.
I think if you consider the research area, which for a long time have been defined by long thought processes and cumbersome processes, when you think about getting from lead idea to the clinic, we are now witnessing a revolution with the speed with which we can move forward with research. And Zealand will be leading that. We have a very firm financial position with more than DKK 2.5 billion in the bank and near-term milestones of more than $1.2 billion. And that also means that we can fund the journey towards profitability with the cash we have and the near-term milestones. So for Zealand Pharma, as we look into the next five years, it's about maximizing the value potential of petrelintide, but then building a pipeline next to petrelintide that can carry innovations for patients into the future.
Zooming in on what looks to be the most defining and catalyst-rich year for Zealand Pharma, then we will see multiple clinical data readouts across our mid to late-stage portfolio. We have petrelintide phase II data, which likely is the most important data set for Zealand, and we'll come back to talk more about that. We are already now working together with our partner, Roche, with full efforts to get the program into phase III in the second half of the year. Then we expect to start also a phase II study with the combination with CT-388. Survodutide has been flying a little bit under the radar, but it's really, I would call it the year of Survodutide 2026. Boehringer Ingelheim will report the results of more than six phase III studies within their BCCP program for Survodutide.
Not only the two pivotal studies in obese patients with and without diabetes, but also a large cardiovascular outcome study is expected to read out this year, and then we would anticipate that Boehringer submit the filing later in the year, then you will see also progress across the early pipeline, including very, very near-term data from our Kv1.3 inhibitor for autoimmune diseases. If those data come out the way we hope, it's a completely new value pocket in our pipeline, which we have not discussed a lot until today, but if these data support what we hope this program can deliver, it's something definitely we'll talk more about, and then we're going to spend significant efforts also broadening our research footprint, establishing a research hub in Boston, which we expect to be up and running by the middle of this year.
So in the coming five years, with the pipeline we have at hand today, we expect to have five launches, not only within obesity, but also from our two rare disease assets targeting congenital hyperinsulinism and short bowel syndrome, which are two programs we would expect ultimately to have partners to commercialize. So again, adding to the journey towards our generational biotech aspiration. Before I discuss Zealand more specifically and our pipeline in more details, I just want us all to take a step back and consider what it is we're trying to solve for here. Sometimes when we discuss numbers and what I've called out as the weight loss Olympics, and it almost feels like a sport to impress each other, we forget about what it is we're actually trying to achieve here. We are facing probably the biggest healthcare challenge of our time with the obesity pandemic.
It's not because of obesity; it's because of the consequences of living with obesity for a long time. If you get obesity as a child, this is even more difficult because it's the duration of time you live with obesity that causes all these comorbidities. Already today, we have more than five million excessive deaths that you can ascribe to obesity. That is higher than what the number of people who were dying from Corona during the peak hours. It doesn't frighten us to the same extent because it has been building up slowly. We have only looked at the tip of the iceberg here because it's only now that we're going to see the consequences for those who have lived with obesity since childhood are going to kick in.
And remember, if you get end-stage organ diseases in your 40s, you will have organ failure in your 50s and 60s. And that's what we are looking into if we don't solve the problem. The good news is we have seen with the launch of the first GLP-1s that you actually can use medical intervention to help people lose weight. More than 12% of the U.S. population have been exposed to a GLP-1. The problem is with where we are today that only somewhere between 2% and 4% are on treatment. People simply stop taking the current therapies, and therefore they never get to the health benefits. If you don't stay on therapy, you don't get to the health benefits, and you don't solve the obesity, the consequence of the obesity pandemic we are looking at.
We also know, based on real-world evidence, and that's another reason why I've called to end this weight loss Olympics, that for most patients, the average weight loss that you experience in the real world is not the numbers we hear about in clinical studies, and there are several reasons for that, but if you just look at the two once-weekly products that are on the market today, evidence and market data would suggest that patients on average experience 8%-12% weight loss, and they mostly never get to the highest doses of these molecules. We believe a lot of that has to do with two factors. Number one, which is very much associated to the GLP-1 class, is the GI side effect profile, the tolerability, and while people are super motivated to lose weight, once they've achieved the weight loss, people are willing to accept much less.
So many patients never get to the high doses and never get to experience the full benefit of these molecules because of side effects. The other thing is, if you ask patients, most patients are actually not interested in getting into the high 20s in weight loss. 80% of all patients would tell you, at least in most of the market research that we have done, that they're looking for a weight loss of up to 20%. This is also backed by recent data from IQVIA, again demonstrating that if you look at the many patients who stop taking GLP-1s today, 50% of those are due to GI side effects. The other part is due to cost and access elements. But I really want you guys to also consider why is it we have seen, why is it we have experienced some disappointment in the uptake of these molecules.
There's been a lot of discussions about pricing. I think that's the less important aspect of the disappointment. In my mind, the disappointment is driven by the fact that too many people stop taking these medicines too early. People use the GLP-1-based therapies more as event-based therapies and not as true chronic therapies. Again, I have to remind you, if you don't stay on therapy, you don't get the health benefits. Have we really solved the problem with what we have today? I don't think so. We have demonstrated that medical intervention can help people lose weight, but for the majority of patients, they never get to experience the long-term benefits of staying on a medical and maintaining their weight loss.
The other thing is, and I shared that before, when you ask people, "What is the weight loss you would like to see?" The majority of patients say they will give you a number up to around 20%, but not above that. It's mostly, you can say, physicians and maybe us who think it sounds great to get a higher weight loss. But I would again encourage people to really take a step back and think about it. Even if these molecules carry serious side effects, it doesn't come for free to lose, let's say, 30% and maintain such a weight loss. That actually requires you to change your lifestyle dramatically. And most patients are not ready to make that commitment. But the good news is, if you achieve a 15%-20% weight loss, you still get a lot of health benefits.
Actually, if you achieve a 15% weight loss and you maintain that, you get significant more benefits than achieving a 30% weight loss that you cannot maintain. The other thing, and again, people have for some time discussed that is it now the market is so mature and there's already the solutions out there that we need to address obesity. Again, I have to remind all of you, we have only taken the first baby steps into solving this healthcare crisis. If you look into other chronic diseases, which I would argue are less complicated and less heterogeneous than the obesity situation, there are at least eight different tools that physicians can turn to to help their individualized patients to meet their needs for how to manage a chronic disease.
In obesity, we have one category called GLP-1, which is fantastic in helping people achieve a weight loss, but have turned out to be more difficult tools when we talk about weight maintenance. That's why we are super excited about the opportunity of the amylin category in general, and more specifically about petrelintide, which we believe, based on the early clinical evidence, holds best-in-class potential. We are super excited about the consistency and the robustness of how petrelintide has read out in our phase I studies. If you look into the 16-week study to the right, you will also see that we achieved almost between 8% and 9% weight loss in a predominantly male population and a population of people who had a BMI below 30. So these are almost normal weight patients and almost entirely males, 20% females. This is very, very impressive.
It's almost, I would say, comparable to what we have seen from competing programs in patients who were having a BMI closer to 40 and where you had 80% females. And I have to remind you that in clinical studies, females tend to lose 5%-8% more weight than males. So these are very impressive numbers when you think about that it's a predominantly male population and a lean population. And that's why we approach our phase II data this quarter with a high degree of confidence for the outcome, because in phase II, of course, we have more obese patients. So here we have a BMI of around 30 instead of 37, sorry, instead of the 30 we had in the early clinical exposure. And as important, we now have 50% females and not the 20% females we have reported before.
So of course, just those study conditions will help with the outcomes of the study. The other one, it's a longer duration study. It's 42 weeks, and we know time is also critical to achieve the ultimate weight losses. And that's why we continue to articulate that ultimately what we are aiming for with petrelintide is a product that provides patients with the opportunity to lose 15%-20%. That is what 80% of the patients are looking for and a much more benign weight loss experience. You could actually even start to talk about a pleasant weight loss experience. We at least hypothesize when you get to a situation where there's choices, you would stop talking about, "Can you tolerate it?" The conversations will change to, "Will you accept it?" What you are on today. And that's where we think petrelintide holds a big promise.
Also, again, the confidence comes from the fact that side effects are mostly seen in the initial part of our studies, and we have already seen the 16-week data that it's more placebo-like than anything we have otherwise looked at, so we are moving also with firmness and speed together with Roche into our phase III program, where we're going to start a comprehensive program in the second half of the year and also move towards a large cardiovascular outcome study, really with the aim of establishing petrelintide as a future first-line and foundational therapy for patients who are looking for a weight loss of 15%-20%, and importantly, a product that can help people maintain that weight loss so they truly get to the weight benefit or to the health benefits of staying on therapy.
The partnership we announced in March last year with Roche is, as one of my colleagues has expressed, everything we had hoped for. It was a very competitive process when we went out and found a partner for petrelintide. And ultimately, we chose Roche because we felt with Roche, we found an organization who had the commitment needed to actually establish therapeutic leadership in this space. And Teresa has been out committing again here at this conference that their aim is to be a top three player. That was also what we felt in the partnering process. So of course, it's nice to also hear it here. As importantly, it's a company who has a strong history of collaboration. And since this is a 50/50 partnership, this is a partnership that you could have between two large pharma companies.
It's very rare that you see a small biotech like Zealand being able to have such a partnership. And we knew that we had to partner up with somebody who would embrace the partnership nature and really play to the strength of both companies. And that is what we have. We also have committed to actually go out and build up a commercial footprint alongside Roche in the U.S. And again, we have a 50/50 profit share. Just think about that. It's 50% profit share to a program where we do not have to invest into manufacturing capabilities because Roche will carry those investments. But still, we are looking to have managed to retain the long-term value opportunity for this program and all the strategic rights that are needed to support the journey that we are embarking on.
Moving on from one strong partner to another one, Boehringer Ingelheim, a private company which doesn't get a lot of attention on a conference like this, at least not in the investor meetings. They do have quite a lot of attention at partner meetings. Boehringer is one of the most committed and strong players in the cardiometabolic space. They are the developer of one of the leading SGLT2 molecules in the space. They were the first pharma company to report positive clinical CV outcome data in the diabetes setting, and now they're set to lead in the next wave of innovation in the GLP-1-based medicines with Survodutide, which is a Zealand invention together with Boehringer, where we will have high single- to low double digit royalties. So Boehringer is leading all efforts. We just get royalties from this program.
And as Boehringer put it at the conference here at ObesityWeek in November, "See obesity, think liver." We very often underappreciate that the number of obese patients living with liver disease is actually significantly higher than the number of patients living with type 2 diabetes. And as I said in my introductory remarks, Boehringer is going to the complete phase III program is going to read out from this program this year, starting already here in the first half. And then we would anticipate Boehringer to submit the file later this year. And the data that we have seen thus far, at least in our minds, suggests that the weight loss profile and the tolerability profile is comparable to the GLP-1s. What really differentiates this molecule is its potential to also get fat out of organs. And that could be not only the liver, but also other organs.
As one of the investigators in the program said when he saw this slide about, "See obesity, think liver," he then added, "And treat the heart." We at least have high expectations for also the cardiovascular outcome study that will also read out this year. But as I said, the key differentiator for Survodutide is the opportunity to address MASH, which is one of the most underserved conditions associated with the obesity pandemic. And the data that Boehringer presented a few years back is groundbreaking data. At least to our minds, it's the best data set we have seen in this category. And Boehringer is moving forward with a lot of conviction and strength. It's the biggest phase III program ever conducted in MASH. It's 3,500 patients, not only targeting F2 and F3 patients, but also F4 patients.
That just, again, I think it's important that we just take a step back and realize what that could provide. Because one thing is, of course, to slow down disease development in F2 and F3 patients. But if Boehringer can also truly show that they can actually change the course for patients who have late-stage liver disease F4, that would be a significant clinical game changer for these patients. The other thing, considering the scope and the size of the program, Boehringer could end up being the first pharma company who do not only have a conditional approval in MASH, but actually a full approval. Remember, FDA has only granted conditional approvals for the products that are available today. And to get a full approval, you need to show clinical benefits.
Because Boehringer has more disease patients and the scope and the size of the program, I at least would speculate that they could be the first company to demonstrate that. So just spending the last minute before we move to my concluding slide, I just again want to reiterate that Zealand's ambition is so much more than just redefining the near-term value of the near-term treatment of obesity and patients living with MASH and associated diseases, focusing in and maximizing the value of petrelintide. It's also about doubling down on our research efforts. We are going to spend DKK 5 billion on research in the coming five years. That is five times as much as we spent in the prior five years. It's a significant commitment to build the world's most valuable metabolic health pipeline.
And we're going to do that by a mix of internal innovation, but also partnerships where we're going to partner with the best when it comes to modalities outside the peptide space, where we are leaders. In December, we announced the partnership on small molecules. We'll continue, hopefully, into the year and expect to announce more partnerships that can help us build the pipeline so we have 10 clinical candidates within the next five years. So that just leads me to conclude that we are looking into a transformational year for Zealand Pharma. We're going to have significant clinical data readouts across our entire pipeline and look forward to share more in the coming months.
Thanks very much for the presentation, Adam. Do we have any questions in the room? Maybe we could just start off on one on amylin.
So over the past couple of years, we've seen data that's suggestive of the potential of the amylin class, both from an efficacy and tolerability perspective. In that context, where do you see petrelintide most likely to differentiate itself? Is it still in the potency of the molecule, as suggested from the single ascending dose data you showed, or is it some other aspect we should focus on?
I think it's really a matter of getting the balance right between weight loss and tolerability. And for most patients, and we see that also partly in the real-world utilization of the GLP-1s, is you need to deliver, you need to pass a certain bar from a weight loss perspective. But once you have passed that, it's actually about the weight loss experience. So for us, it's really about developing a medicine that is not just about weight loss, but more so about how do we get a product to patients that they can actually stay on. And it's actually, in our minds, it's beyond the GI tolerability issues. It's always easy to talk about nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and so on. And those are important topics in the current environment.
I think in the future, it's actually we need to change the conversation towards what is the experience that patients are looking for. And at one point, it's not logical for chronic diseases to discuss, can you tolerate or not. It's about, will you tolerate if there is an alternative? And with amylin and petrelintide in particular, what we have seen thus far, we think the weight loss experience is going to be very different. And that's back to this thing that you feel full faster rather than losing your appetite. So it's this profile of the drug more than the actual numbers. Having said that, we do have a lot of confidence in the numbers as well, but that's not what will make it a winner in the end. That is the profile, the balance between efficacy, safety, and experience.
As you've mentioned, it's an important year in terms of data readouts. I think this quarter we're expecting the phase II data from Survodutide. In the context of the importance of trial design and factors we should consider, such as the balance of males and females, how should we think about comparing the results of the phase II trial to those of competitors with slightly different trial designs? What sort of range of efficacy outcome would you consider competitive at this stage?
Yeah, one should always be careful to compare between trials and look for head-to-head studies. But it is, of course, also fair to state that we know that BMI has a big impact on how much weight you can lose. If you have a BMI of 30, I mean, there's a limit to how much weight you want to lose, then it at least becomes extremely unhealthy. If you have more females, we know that females are losing 5%-8% more weight loss. So of course, all these things matter. So for us, when we look at these data, the key thing for us is to make sure that we confirm to ourselves that we can ultimately get to a profile that will deliver 15%-20% weight loss in a phase III study, which is what will inform the labels.
In a phase III study, you would naturally have, let's say, 70% females. So we, of course, can live with slightly lower numbers in this phase II study, knowing that it's shorter-term treatment, only 42 weeks versus longer-term, and a 50/50 balance. So as long as we get in that range, we would be super excited.
You've also highlighted here the reasons people discontinue GLP-1s. The majority is due to adverse events, but the second most frequent reason is due to cost concerns for about a third of patients. How willing do you see consumers to pay for weight loss maintenance as well as purely weight loss? Do you think that this is going to be something more in the prescriber segment so you can derive those comorbidity benefits, or do you see consumers as also being willing to pay for that?
Absolutely. But it's about, if you think about consumers and how much, and I guess all of us are consumers in certain degrees, there's a lot of things that we pay for. And if you think about the motivation that people have to lose weight and also maintain those weight losses, the reality is for many, many years, we have had plenty of opportunities to lose weight using different tools, but we have never solved the holy grail of actually helping people maintain that weight loss. So we see a lot of weight cycling. And people go to fitness centers. They don't use them maybe that much, but they pay for them year in and year out. And so people are willing to pay for weight maintenance as well if they get an experience that they're ready to commit to.
But of course, if the experience is so that it's only one which they will accept when they have the weight loss phase, they will not pay for it. And that's why we think we actually still believe that there will continue to be some disappointments in this market until we see novel agents entering the market where patients actually truly get the experience that they would be looking for. And I think we would all do ourselves a favor if we started to ask ourselves, how will things change if there is an alternative as compared to just sitting there trying to fight around patients that are getting the same experience?
Thinking again about the consumer portion in particular of the obesity market, this year we're seeing the launch of oral GLP-1s. It's not a surprise we knew they were coming. But how do you see them as shaping the obesity market, and what do you think that this will mean for the competitive environment when petrelintide potentially launches?
Yeah, I think they will likely expand the current market. I think they will expand the opportunities for those patients who enjoy to be on a GLP-1. I think they will have very little to no impact on the success of future categories because it will still be a GLP-1 experience. It will potentially be an even worse GLP-1 experience when it comes to side effects for some of these molecules. So it doesn't change the underlying deficiencies, in my mind, of the GLP-1s. It does provide the opportunity for those who don't want to take an injection. It does provide easier supply chain because it's not cold chain supply. So there are certain opportunities to expand the opportunity, but it doesn't change the fundamentals around how do we get around the obesity pandemic.
I would expect to see quite significant initial excitement, but that and then followed by potentially even more disappointments. Because remember, I mean, that is what we saw also with the injectables.
You're also exploring a combination of amylin with GLP-1. Here we could see higher efficacy potentially, but it seems that beyond that 20% threshold, you're saying this is potentially for a smaller portion of the market that really needs that higher degree of weight loss. How do you then see the relative opportunity for the combination product relative to monotherapy amylin?
There's no question in my mind, and I think it's also been clear from my presentation here today. I think the world is in much, much deeper need of alternatives than more because patients stop taking the current medicines, and very few get to actually enjoy the long-term benefits of having maintained a weight loss. So there's a much deeper need of alternatives, and that's why we are so excited about the monotherapy. But as our ambition goes beyond just providing alternatives and build franchise leadership, that means that combinations will also become very important for those people who are most morbidly obese. If you're an obese patient living with quite established type 2 diabetes, it's a fantastic opportunity to combine an amylin and a GLP-1. It's also a tool which we would expect to be more utilized in the specialist segment.
So it's something that would be positioned quite differently compared to a monotherapy for amylin. And for me personally, I think it's a tool which will require some physician engagement to convince patients to stay on it. Because as I also shared before, if you're getting into those 25%-30% weight losses, I personally think you need a very strong voice, a doctor, somebody telling you to stay on, because you need to be reminded why you have changed your life so much to an extent that you actually might not are dreaming a little bit about how life was before.
Just sticking with that specialist segment as well, you've spoken about the importance of the benefits to different comorbidities. Are there any comorbidities where you think amylin could particularly differentiate themselves beyond a CV trial? What's top of your list for comorbidities to explore?
Yeah, but number one, I would just reiterate what we discussed until now. If people end up staying on an amylin therapy, you actually have more differentiation than anything else. Because if you don't stay on a GLP-1, you never get to experience the health benefits, so we might be super excited about the clinical trial readouts that we are seeing, but if less than 30% stay on therapy, there will be very few patients who get to experience those benefits, so with the amylin on the risk markers for cardiovascular disease, we have already seen those being reduced, likely to the same extent as the GLP-1s, but more importantly, if we get patients to stay on, then we will actually suddenly, as a society, get health benefits out of it, so that alone is a major differentiator, and that's going to be the number one focus for us.
Then together with Roche, we are in deep dialogues right now around which additional indications are we going to expand into, and we will expand into additional comorbidities to show benefits beyond the cardiovascular space.
Thank you. Are there any questions in the room? Maybe we could turn to Survodutide where we also have interesting data coming up this year. I think in your phase II, Survodutide showed efficacy more or less between Wegovy and Zepbound. You've made some alterations in terms of trial design for titration schedule, etc. But would you broadly expect that similar efficacy profile in a phase III? And how should we think about tolerability as well?
Yeah, we would expect, and of course, we're super excited to see the data as they will be reported throughout the year. We would expect it to provide a weight loss that is comparable to what we see on the market of products today. And then importantly, the glucagon component, I think it has been underappreciated that it's actually, it's more than just the liver. I mean, remember, glucagon may actually increase lipolysis slightly. So maybe you could also, as a patient, experience a slightly improved energy expenditure. So meaning that it's not only about reducing your calorie intake, but also burning a little bit more energy. That could be a major positive for patients as we are looking into how can I maintain my weight loss and still being able to enjoy food once in a while. So that's one thing.
And then I think the whole, you can say, triangle or the whole connection between liver, heart, kidney, and so on, we cannot underestimate the potential from a prescriber perspective. If you have a molecule that truly gets fat out of the liver more than the current molecules, that's a major reason for getting on a product like this because you could easily envision that you will have significant more health benefits than just looking into the weight loss.
And the key differentiating aspect, I suppose, for Survodutide is going to be its potential in MASH. What's your current thinking in terms of the size of the MASH opportunity? And with that, how common is screening of obese individuals for the particular condition?
Yeah, but I think this is going to be one of the most dynamic markets as we look into it. Remember, there's been zero treatments available a few years back. Now we have the first two approved in the U.S. medicines to address the MASH patients. And it's seen across any other therapeutic area. When we start to see new treatments coming in, you will also see very different physician behaviors and focus on these diseases. And the fact is that MASH is the most underserved consequence of obesity today. It is scary to think about it because at least in my book, probably the liver is one of the organs that can survive the longest when it's metabolically challenged. That means it's not a problem if you get, and for very few patients, it will be a problem if you become obese when you're 40.
But if you live with obesity since childhood, at one point, if you are disposed to liver disease, you will get to end-stage liver disease. And that's a very serious situation to be in, which leads to transplantation today. So I would expect this market to change a lot as we start to see molecules that have a significant clinical impact on the outcome. In particular, if Boehringer can demonstrate the effects also in F4 patients, you will see a complete change in this market. On the diagnostic end, as Boehringer put it, for many physicians, I think it's enough just to be educated that we have 75% of obese individuals who have excessive fat in the liver, and I think it's close to 40% who actually have some degree of fatty liver disease.
If we start to talk about that, so we don't just associate obesity with type 2 diabetes, but actually perhaps the more prevalent situation of fatty liver disease, why would you not take a product that has more potential to address that condition where there's no treatment? And so I'm not sure we even need to change the diagnostic situation. It's more just the notion that there's a high likelihood that the patient that sits in front of you actually has a liver condition.
And towards the end of last year, you took the decision to pause the development of dapiglutide. That was going to be an asset, not only offering weight loss, but also addressing inflammation. How are you thinking about the path forward for that asset? Is that still something you could seek partnering opportunities for?
Of course it is. And it is one of the most difficult decisions to close programs where the data is actually great. But we took a mature view and took a step back and looked at the situation from a commercial point of view as well to say, okay, it looks great. The weight loss that we can expect is probably going to be pretty similar to what other modalities can provide. And the clinical benefit on inflammation is something we can only demonstrate very late into the launch on outcome studies. So when are we going to recap the investments that are going into this program? And it's just, again, made us decide that we can actually spend our money much wiser into the next wave of novel modalities rather than trying to build yet another GLP-1.
I personally think that GLP-1s will continue to play a role, but I think we have also seen the deficiencies of the GLP-1s. So if we truly want to address the obesity pandemic, we need to move on into different modalities. And we don't want to be in the camp of undifferentiated molecules. We actually want to develop molecules that make a true difference, a clinical relevant difference for the future.
At your CMD, you also highlighted ambitions of further developments within the amylin class, the development of a once-monthly amylin and oral small molecule. Over what sort of timeframe could we expect to see these innovations? And do you think that in the format of an oral, considering what we've seen from GLP-1s, could the tolerability benefits of an amylin be maintained?
Yeah, so we have for some time been, as you can probably imagine, when we took the decision to lead with petrelintide in building the story around petrelintide and amylin as an alternative to the GLP-1s, we also made firm commitments into our research engine to continue to build leadership in this space. And it's early days for amylin biology. We are now looking at the first wave of innovation in the clinic. And of course, we have invested also in second and third waves. And part of that is to make what we would consider true once-monthly molecules. We are not in the camp that is trying to force a once-weekly profile into a once-monthly. We think it's like playing with fire. Others are doing it. They might be successful, but we just have to remind people that we are playing with very potent biology here.
So that's not what we are focusing on right now. We are trying to actually solve first for the PK before we then pursue that. I think it's, in my personal belief, that the all opportunities for amylin are more attractive than for the GLP-1s because of the tolerability profile. So people will actually get the experience that they're looking for. So of course, we are also active in that end. And then we are active in other considerations for how to expand the amylin franchise leadership that we think we have today.
With that, we're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us, Adam Steensberg.
Thank you.