Vincentage Pharma’s oral GLP-1 agonist has been tied to a mean weight loss of 12.4% over a year, setting up the biotech to pursue Eli Lilly’s orforglipron to Chinese regulators.
Chengdu-based Vincentage evaluated two doses of the weight loss pill, dubbed VCT220, against placebo in 840 Chinese adults with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related comorbidity. After 52 weeks, patients who received a 120 mg or 160 mg once-daily dose of VCT220 experienced mean weight reductions of 12.2% and 12.4%, respectively, compared to 1.3% weight loss for the placebo cohort.
While cross-trial comparisons are difficult, weight loss results associated with Vincentage’s candidate appear to come in below Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. A 25 mg oral version of the Danish pharma’s blockbuster—which was approved by the FDA late last year—was tied to 16.6% weight loss over the slightly longer period of 64 weeks in a phase 3 trial called Oasis 4.
Instead, Vincentage’s data seem closer to Eli Lilly’s own oral GLP-1 contender orforglipron, which was tied to weight loss of 12.4% when given at the highest, 36 mg dose, over 72 weeks.
Lilly is currently waiting to hear whether Chinese regulators will approve orforglipron. The U.S. pharma has already pledged $3 billion for manufacturing operations in the country in expectation of receiving the green light.
When it came to safety, Vincentage said in this morning’s release that VCT220 had demonstrated “favorable overall tolerability,” with only 1.8% of patients who received the drug discontinuing the trial due to treatment-related adverse events.
While the most common adverse events were gastrointestinal—a common pitfall of GLP-1 drugs—these side effects were “generally mild to moderate in severity,” and no cases of severe nausea or vomiting were reported, Vincentage noted.
Armed with this late-stage data, Vincentage is planning to submit an approval application “in the near term” to Chinese regulators for VCT220 as a treatment for chronic weight management.
Within China, the biotech is also exploring VCT220’s potential to treat type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other obesity-related cardiometabolic conditions. Meanwhile, Shanghai-headquartered Corxel Pharmaceuticals—which bought the ex-China rights to the drug back in 2024—is due to read out a phase 2 weight loss study for VCT220 in the U.S. later this year.
“VCT220 is an internally discovered oral non-peptide small-molecule GLP-1 [receptor agonist] designed for once-daily administration without food or water restrictions, offering a dosing titration period as short as six weeks and no requirement for refrigerated or light-protected storage,” Vincentage CEO Ben Li, Ph.D., said in the May 18 release.
“We believe VCT220 has the potential to provide a more convenient, accessible, and sustainable treatment option compared to injectable therapies for people with obesity or overweight, which may help improve treatment initiation and long-term adherence,” Li added.
Ji Linong, Director of the Department of Endocrinology at Peking University People's Hospital and principal investigator of the study, highlighted that VCT220 had been “independently developed by a Chinese pharmaceutical company.”
“The successful development of VCT220 not only expands China's obesity treatment landscape, but also has the potential, through Corxel Pharmaceuticals' global clinical development efforts, to offer additional weight management options to people around the world,” Ji added.