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Investing.com - H.C. Wainwright maintained its buy rating and $50.00 price target on Scholar Rock (NASDAQ:SRRK), whose shares have surged 337% over the past year and 12% in the last week alone. The rating follows the company’s recent Phase 2 EMBRAZE trial results.
The trial demonstrated that Scholar Rock’s apitegromab, when combined with tirzepatide, significantly preserved lean muscle mass in overweight and obese patients compared to tirzepatide alone, addressing a key concern with GLP-1 agonists.
At the 24-week endpoint, patients receiving the combination therapy lost approximately 12-13% of total body weight, similar to those on tirzepatide alone, but with a notably different composition of weight loss.
Patients treated with apitegromab plus tirzepatide lost approximately 85% of weight from fat and only 15% from lean tissue, compared to 69-70% from fat and 30% from lean tissue in the tirzepatide-only group.
This represents a 54.9% relative preservation of lean muscle (1.9 kg or about 4.2 pounds) versus GLP-1 alone, exceeding Scholar Rock’s internal target range of 20-40% and positioning apitegromab as a potential best-in-class candidate for quality weight loss.
In other recent news, Scholar Rock has reported a wider net loss for the first quarter, amounting to $74.7 million, or $0.67 per share, compared to a loss of $56.9 million, or $0.59 per share, in the same period last year. This loss was slightly below analysts’ estimates of $0.66 per share. The company did not report any revenue for the quarter, aligning with the previous year’s results. Scholar Rock’s research and development expenses increased to $48.7 million, attributed to investments in commercial manufacturing and launch readiness for its spinal muscular atrophy drug, apitegromab. General and administrative expenses nearly doubled to $28.4 million as the company prepares for a potential product launch. Additionally, Scholar Rock announced promising results from its Phase 2 EMBRAZE trial, showing that apitegromab, in combination with tirzepatide, preserved 54.9% more lean mass compared to tirzepatide alone during weight loss. The company also appointed Rebecca McLeod as Chief Brand Officer to lead the U.S. commercial launch of apitegromab. Scholar Rock’s forward-looking plans include a potential U.S. launch of apitegromab in the third quarter of 2025, pending FDA approval.
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