Viking Therapeutics at Leerink’s Conference: Strategic Advances in Obesity Treatments

On Tuesday, 11 March 2025, Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) presented at Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025, outlining significant strides in developing treatments for metabolic and endocrine disorders. The company announced a new supply agreement and shared promising clinical trial results, but also faced challenges in seeking licensing partners for its MASH program.

Key Takeaways

• Viking Therapeutics announced a long-term supply agreement with Corden Pharma for VK2735.
• Positive Phase II results for VK2735 showed approximately 15% weight loss over 13 weeks.
• The company plans to initiate Phase III trials for VK2735 in the second quarter.
• Viking is seeking a licensing partner for its VK2809 MASH program.
• The company ended the year with over $900 million in cash, supporting ongoing projects.

Financial Results

• Viking closed the year with over $900 million in cash, ensuring funding for the subcutaneous Phase III program and advancing the oral formulation.
• The agreement with Corden Pharma includes milestone-based pre-order payments, which are fully refundable through future order credits.

Operational Updates

• Viking secured a multi-year supply chain agreement with Corden Pharma, covering the supply of VK2735 in various forms, including auto-injector and oral tablets.
• The Phase III trial for VK2735 will start with vial and syringe administration, transitioning to auto-injector by late this year or early next year.
• The company plans to file an IND for its DACRA program, with clinical trials expected to commence in 2026.

Future Outlook

• Two Phase III trials are planned for VK2735, involving 4,500 patients, with at least 1,500 on placebo.
• Viking is exploring a monthly maintenance dosing regimen and a transition to a low-dose oral tablet.
• The oral formulation is positioned as a maintenance therapy following initial treatment with the injectable.

Q&A Highlights

• VK2735 showed a favorable tolerability profile in Phase II, with mild to moderate GI side effects.
• The potential for less frequent dosing of the oral formulation is under consideration.
• Viking is evaluating co-formulation options for VK2735 with its DACRA program.

For further details, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript provided below.

Full transcript - Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025:

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Thanks for joining us here at the Leerink Partners Global Healthcare Conference. My name is Tom Smith. I’m one of the SMICCAD Biotech Analysts here at Leerink. And, it’s my pleasure to welcome our next company to the stage, Viking Therapeutics. I’m really happy to be joined, by President and CEO, Brian Lianne.

Brian, thanks for joining us.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Thanks, Tom. Great to be here and thanks to Lyric for the, the invitation to participate.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Great. And, Brian, I feel like many people in the audience are quite familiar with the Viking story, but maybe if you could just kick us off with a little bit of introductory remarks for some of those who may be less familiar and kind of like a state of the state of of where Viking is today.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. Sure. Viking, I founded Viking in 2012 and we did an IPO in 2015. And since then, we’ve raised about a little over a billion in follow on financings. We have a portfolio of programs focused on metabolic and endocrine disorders.

The program that is, I guess most interesting to people right now is an obesity program. We have a compound called VK2735, it’s a peptide, dual agonist of the GLP1 and GIP receptors. That is, it’s been through a Phase II study, showed around 15% weight loss over thirteen weeks. And we’re set to bring it into Phase III development in the second quarter. It’s a sub Q formulation.

We also have an oral formulation of the same compound that is currently in a Phase II study, a thirteen week Phase II study, and we expect to report data from that study in the second half of the year. Those are the main active, focused programs today. We also have a MASH program, VK2809. It’s a small molecule thyroid receptor beta agonist. It’s been through a Phase 2b study, a fifty two week study, and showed a very nice improvement in fibrosis and NASH resolution rate compared to placebo.

And currently, we’re seeking a licensing partner for that program. And then finally, we have an orphan disease program, rare disease program, another thyroid receptor agonist. It’s been through a phase 1b study in patients with the rare disease called X linked adrenoleukodystrophy, and it showed a really promising improvement in a key biomarker for the disease called very long chain fatty acids. Like the VK2809 program that’s also available for licensing. Our focus today is on the obesity franchise.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Yep. Great. Thanks, Brian. And, yeah, I want to start, with the important manufacturing and supply agreement you announced earlier this morning. This has been an increasing focus for investors over the last kind of six to nine months.

As you’ve consistently, I think, talked about having secured enough API and supply to get you through the clinical studies, I think an outstanding question has been how would you look to tackle supply and capacity as we think about potential commercialization? The agreement you announced this morning is with Corden Pharma. Maybe you just start with, kind of the key terms. What have you locked in? And, and a little bit of like why Corden, talk a little bit about, I guess, their expertise and what, you know, the process of selecting Corden over, I’m sure what was a pretty competitive process.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, yeah. Thanks. And we noticed that this morning it’s a large scale long term supply agreement with Corden Pharma to supply the full supply chain. So a multiyear, multi ton annual supply of API for VK 2 thousand 7 hundred and 30 5 and then large scale supply of the auto injector finished product, as well as a large scale supply of the vial in a syringe form of the product, and then finally, multibillion tablet supply for the oral formulation. So we would see those as the three major product forms, the auto injector, vial and syringe, and the tablet.

And Chordin was really one of the few companies that could address the entire supply chain. And a long history of peptide manufacturing, global footprint. We’ve worked with them on multiple other programs, so we’ve got a long history of working with them and a great relationship. So, we think it’s a really excellent partner for bringing this program forward.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: That’s great. And just, bigger picture, because I think you’ve talked historically about potentially locking in multiple suppliers. Like how are you thinking about how confident are you that this agreement supplies you sufficiently for commercialization? And then how actively are you out there seeking other partnerships and other suppliers?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. It’s very important to have, to have backups. And one thing that was really unique about Chordant is that they actually do have redundancy internally for, for all elements of the supply chain. So API can be produced in two different sites. But nonetheless, we are likely to add additional backup suppliers, you know, over time.

Right now, this supply agreement provides more than we would anticipate in the initial couple of years of launch on all fronts. So, but what you know, it’s a good practice to have a backup supply on all elements.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. That makes sense. And on the financial terms of it, it seems like you’re retaining all there’s no royalty associated with $2,735 I know there are prepayments. Yep. May you just talk about sort of the financial commitment that you’ve made to Corden in the near term and kind of long term, what are you locked into?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. We make certain pre order payments, based on, Corden achieving various milestones along the API production as well as fill and finish production. And all of those are fully refunded to Viking through credits on future orders. So we think it’s a very attractive financial transaction for Viking.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. Okay. And then you mentioned having secured kind of those three pillars of form of administration. On the auto injector specifically, can you just talk about, I guess, Corden’s experience with auto injector products? Do they manufacture auto injectors for other commercially approved products or what was the selection on the auto injector side?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. On the auto injector side, I don’t know what other products they are, supplying today. Those vendors typically don’t share their other client information with us. We know they have a line, that can produce the auto injectors. We also know they have lines to produce violin syringe and tablets.

So, for us, they met all of the criteria that we were seeking.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. That makes sense. And, can you just remind us on the auto injector front, I guess, the current plans to implement the auto injector into your clinical studies? What are we using? You know, what did we use in Venture for the sub q?

What are we using, planned on using in the phase three? And then I guess when are we introducing the auto injector?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yes. So the in the phase two study, the Venture, study, that was a vial and a syringe administered in the clinic. People didn’t have to stay in the clinic. They just got the drug administered in the clinic. For the Phase three, the first part of the study will use the same mechanism.

So people will be receiving the product through the vial and the syringe form and then we will later transition people to the auto injector. And that will probably happen late this year or early next year, that transition.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Okay. And that will, that transition will all take place in the context of the Phase three or

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, yeah. In the Phase three, yes. Okay.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. And then, burning the supply around the oral and the one billion tablet capacity,

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: I

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: mean, how should we think about, I guess, your ability to manufacture oral two thousand seven hundred and thirty five even at some of those higher doses in the phase two venture oral study, you’re now looking up to one hundred and twenty milligrams daily. I guess what kind of supply have we locked in? And do you feel like it would be sufficient if you did move forward with the one hundred and twenty mg oral to therefore be able to manufacture that on a commercial scale effectively?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. We’ve always planned on really focusing on the oral as more of a maintenance therapy at a lower dose level than that. We are going up to one hundred and twenty mgs in the Phase two. I think commercially the lower doses is where we would focus. And keep in mind that oral is a good twelve to eighteen months behind the subcu.

So the supply is more than enough to address many times over the subcu requirements that we’ve modeled and sufficient to supply a very large oral product as well. But oral is a little bit further behind. We don’t, I mean, we can add to all elements of the agreement if we think we’re going to need more.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. That makes sense. Okay. Well, let’s shift gears and talk about some of the clinical data you generated, in the Phase two Venture study with the sub Q form of 2,735. Maybe just talk a little bit about, some of the differentiated aspects of that data set.

We’ve got a number of questions over the last few days. There’s a KagriSEMA readout that showed, you know, you’re talking about 13% weight loss. I think they showed modestly more but with a much longer, duration of dosing. And so I guess, you know, help help frame, I guess, what you saw in Phase two Venture versus, some of these other competitor, read out that we’ve seen recently.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. That was an interesting study. It was in diabetics. So diabetics are typically a little more resistant to the weight loss benefit. We saw in thirteen weeks, fourteen point seven percent weight loss, at our top dose.

And, you know, the curves were still fairly negative at the thirteen week data point. So we would anticipate those to extend with extended dosing. We think, you know, it’s hard to know where that plateau would happen, but it certainly looks competitive versus the CAGRISIMA program. I think it looks competitive versus pretty much anything we’ve seen thus far. A lot of data cards got turned over last year and, you know, we’re always interested in seeing the data cards get turned over.

And I think we feel pretty good about the overall profile today on the efficacy and the tolerability relative to what we’ve seen thus far.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. And, yeah, I guess specifically you mentioned the tolerability profile. I know in venture up to fifteen mg dose levels, mild to moderate GI side effects, relatively low discontinuation rate. What is your sense? I mean, the way we look at that data, we think that looks differentiated versus basically any other ingredient that we’ve seen to date.

What do you attribute that what do you, attribute that differentiation

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: or potential differentiation to? And,

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: how do you expect that to manifest as you’re thinking through, kind of phase three, plans and expectations?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, it was certainly very well tolerated in the thirteen week study, probably better than we had really interesting thing about the way the adverse events or the tolerability profile emerged was it was typically very early and then, you know, within the really the first the first dose. And then we have a couple of plots like that in our presentation, our posters from obesity week that shows the the rapid waning of, GI related tolerability signals. So it’s it seems to be there’s that first dose that, I don’t know, there’s some accommodation in that first dose causes a little bit of nausea. Sometimes there’s some vomiting, but it resolves very, very quickly, despite increasing dose level through titration. What do we attribute that to?

It’s hard to say. The PK profile is very unique, a very late onset for Tmax relative to what some of the other programs out there. And it could be that that slow, late Tmax helps serve as its own sort of mini titration as the accumulation increases. But we don’t really have a great explanation for it. We’re happy with the profile, but no clear explanation for that.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. That makes sense. I want to talk about your phase three plans. Had an end of Phase two meeting, you got some FDA feedback. I guess reaffirming this idea that you can move directly into Phase three in proximity to that feedback.

We also had the issuance of updated obesity guidelines from FDA. Can you just, maybe provide us some updates or your latest thoughts on the plans for Phase three and then how closely your end of Phase two feedback aligned with those recently issued obesity guidelines?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. Yeah. We had, when we finished the Venture study last year, we scheduled the Type C meeting with the FDA because the prior guidance, just like the newer guidance, prior guidance had a comment about understanding the overall weight loss profile in Phase two prior to going to Phase three. So our question to the FDA in the Type C meeting last year was, based on the data that we have in hand, can we go to Phase three? And the FDA agreed that we could proceed to Phase III.

We scheduled an end of Phase II meeting then in the fourth quarter, submitted the entire data package as well as the proposed protocols and received great feedback. No major modifications requested, just feedback on sizes, things like ambulatory blood pressure, assessing you know, bone through DEXA scan that’s common for all of the Phase III programs, and really didn’t have any significant adjustments. And what we saw from the feedback we received, we saw a lot of that verbiage reflected in the updated guidance. So we’re really, really happy with the feedback and we’ve been preparing ever since to go into Phase three in the second quarter.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. That makes sense. I think you’ve talked historically, planning for two Phase three trials, roughly 4,500 planning for two phase three trials, roughly 4,500 patients. Maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, are there plans for subsequent studies? You also talked about potentially exploring a monthly maintenance dosing regimen perhaps in a separate program.

Yeah, maybe if you could talk about, I guess finalizing the design of the phase three, when we’ll get visibility into the dosing with the phase three, and then how you’re thinking about exploring some of these other aspects of 02/1935?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. We’re pretty final on the designs. I would say we are final on the designs. It’ll be two studies, one large study and a larger study in obese subjects and then a smaller study in obese, diabetic subjects. The guidance requires 4,500 people in a registration program for weight loss with at least 1,500 on placebo.

We’ll probably go above that just to be safe. Guidance also requires fifty two weeks post titration treatment window, so we’ll certainly implement that. And we haven’t disclosed the doses or the titration scheme or any of those details, but we will when we announce the initiation of the study. As far as our studies, and we would hope to start them pretty much concurrently without much lag. We do want to explore a monthly regimen.

And when we look at the PK profile, it does suggest that a monthly cadence should be feasible. When we look at the plasma levels twenty eight days after the last dose, you’re certainly still within that therapeutic range. So it seems to make sense that you could dose less frequently and still achieve plasma levels sufficient to prevent weight regain. And, we’ll explore that in a study later this year. In the second half, we would plan to do that study.

So the idea would be titrate up on the weekly cadence and then transition people once you reach some higher dose transition people to a monthly regimen. In that same study, we would ideally plan to transition a certain portion to a low dose oral as well to look at the PK and weight change effects after a transition to a low dose oral.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Interesting. Okay. And we received some questions from investors over the last month or so. Just in terms of like dosing frequency of the oral as well, like is there a potential to look at potentially less frequent dosing than daily?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, there is. And that would be possibly something that we would put into the, that maintenance study that we’re, we’re planning to begin. So if you could do a once weekly oral, I mean, that could be interesting. My own feeling is that’s probably low probability, but, you know, worth exploring anyway.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Okay. That’s great. And, yeah, let’s, let’s, I guess, double click on the oral. You have the phase one, experience I think showed, compelling weight loss along with again, I feel like a differentiated safety tolerability profile. Can you just, talk about some of the highlights from that and how that informed, the phase two venture oral study that you have ongoing, currently?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, we in the Phase one study, we read that data out in November at Obesity Week. We had gone from two point five mgs daily up to one hundred mgs daily and really encouraging tolerability profile, very mild side effects, low rates of nausea, always mild, low rates of vomiting. And we’ve gone up to one hundred and it was well tolerated. So we thought that we could probably bump the dose up a little bit in the Phase II. And so that’s what we did.

We went to one hundred and twenty milligrams in the ongoing venture Phase II study. So we go from fifteen milligrams up to one hundred and twenty milligrams in the Phase II Venture oral study. But we were satisfied with the weight change there. At twenty eight days, we saw eight point two percent at the top dose. And what was interesting to us is that we looked then four weeks after the last dose and, the top dose had maintained an 8.3% weight loss.

So that was a surprise to us to see that durability, but likely related to the half life. So overall, you know, I think an encouraging data set and we’re interested in seeing the Phase two data later this year.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. And then in that phase two study, you’ve also, included an exploratory arm where you’re dosing ninety mgs daily for up to eight weeks and then you’re going to have a thirty mg maintenance dose for five weeks. I guess just sort of talk through expectations for that arm, what you’re hoping to get in there.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. Really interesting. And when you look at the twenty eight day data, those, you know, in that twenty milligram range, maybe fifteen to thirty that you could see looked like a gradual weight loss. And so, the concept is if you achieve some level of weight loss with a higher dose, can you transition to a lower dose and either see continued weight loss just at a lower rate or prevent weight gain? And so with that exploratory arm in the Phase two, we’ll dose up to ninety, keep people at ninety for four weeks, and then transition them down to thirty for five weeks.

And, really the goal would be to prevent weight gain, but we’ll see. Possibly, you just change the slope of weight loss. Hard to know. It’ll be interesting.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. Yeah. Very, unique aspect of that program. And just, you’ve talked about data likely in the second half of the year. They help frame expectations.

What should we be looking for on sort of an absolute and placebo adjusted weight loss basis at thirteen

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: weeks? Yes, that’s hard to know really. We saw eight percent, you know, we’d like to see more than eight percent in this study. But the thing with relying too much on Phase one is those are small cohorts and it’s a short window and it’s Phase one. So if we could beat that eight percent, that would be great.

If we can see the retention of a really good tolerability profile also, that would be very encouraging. So those are kind of the hurdles we’re looking at.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Okay. And just, I guess higher level strategically, how are you thinking about sort of the split between subcutaneous and oral longer term? And I guess how are you planning for that? I guess how much of the considerations went into, the supply agreement you announced with with Corden?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. We we consider the the sub Q product to really be the the meat of the franchise. That’s what people will likely start on. Now that we’ve seen the tremendous success of the tirzepatide and semaglutide injectable franchises, and then you see the compounders selling the vial and syringe where people self administer, and those sold really well. We do think that there is a pretty low resistance to the injectable products.

They work, they work quickly, they’re well tolerated. So, we would anticipate that to maintain its dominant position, despite the introduction of orals over the next couple of years. And so we see the oral for us as being an important part of an entire franchise. So you start on the weekly injectable. When you reach your target weight range, you transition perhaps to a monthly maintenance dose or to a low dose oral tablet.

And I think we’re the only program that has all of those options available with the same molecule. So it gives patients just more choices, more flexibility, and we think that’s a good thing.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Yeah, that makes sense to me. When I ask you, we get this question all the time. What what is it about 02/1935 or Viking specifically where you’re able to take this dual agonist peptide and formulate it orally driving, you know, I think impressive weight loss, but also good safety tolerability, where it seems like others have have run into a lot of stumbling blocks, like what sort of the the secret sauce behind all of that?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Well, it’s been a lot of a lot of trial and error, especially on the oral side. I mean, the first oral experiment we did, was in dogs and it was just a disaster. It didn’t show anything. But, you know, you look at the data, you comb through it and you can see little glimmers of, oh, that’s an interesting piece of data. Let’s Let’s try the experiment again making this modification.

And, you know, I think maybe at a bigger company, that initial work would have been a turnoff and shut down the program. But we decided to keep keep plugging away and and and keep trying different iterations. And, we finally got to a formulation that gave us pretty good exposures and then ultimately in humans was well tolerated and gave us good, you know, good overall preliminary profile.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. Okay. Shift gears a little bit and talk about your preclinical dual amylin calcitonin receptor agonist or DAKR program. Can you talk a little bit about, the rationale for that program and I guess where you think this fits into the broader emerging amylin landscape?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. Interesting program. We’ve spent a lot of time on it now and we’re moving forward with that. We hope to file an IND this year for the amylin agonist. And the way we’ve looked at amylin, I think there’s a lot of different views of amylin, but we look at it as an interesting add on to the backbone, incretin type therapy.

And so when you add the amylin on top of GLP-one, you see a bump in efficacy. I think when you add it on to a dual agonist, you’d would be reasonable to expect a bump on weight loss as well. So that’s the way we see it. We’ll start the single agent study this year, but I think the overall goal is to move as quickly as we can forward with a combination agent.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Got it. Into a so called quad?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: I guess so, yeah.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Okay. And what, just kind of playing that forward a little bit, what would a prospective timeline look like for getting a quad type product into the clinic, do you think?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: That would most likely be a 2026 event. We’d like to understand the, the initial profile of the of the Amylin program, by itself first.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Understood. Okay. Quite unique there. Okay. I want to shift gears and just quickly talk about the, MASH program in 02/1700.

And you have, the pair biopsy data from the Phase 2b voyage study. I guess what is the latest on that program? You’ve talked about, perhaps seeking out partnerships to go ahead and advance it into Phase three, but how are we thinking about that program today?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah. Really, we think strong data from the Phase 2b study. The voyage study, we saw nice NASH resolution rates, nice fibrosis improvement, and then the combination of NASH resolution and fibrosis improvement. When we think about the path forward into Phase three, requiring we had an end of Phase two meeting at the end of the year last year and received really useful feedback from the FDA. The FDA is really requiring biopsy in every randomized patient.

So for us, that would represent a long term exercise and something that we think would be best handled in conjunction with a partner. So prior to Phase III, we would like to be able to partner the program and bring it forward. Most of the focus, externally from investors has been on the obesity program. So we think that’s where the capital is best allocated right now.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Yes, that makes sense to me. And just, maybe coming back on 02/1935 and you talked about the potential to sort of co formulate with the DACA. I guess maybe just talk through high level, the challenges and complexities associated with some of that co the challenges and complexities associated with some of that co formulation is that is there something unique I guess to 02/1935 and the compound or the structure that would make it easier to potentially co formulate with another compound?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yeah, all of that sort of in process now. I mean, I think, you could either do the, the Cancresima approach where sort of a dual chamber pen would be the mechanism of administration or co formulate. And I think it’s too early to know right now if the co formulation is, provides long term stability.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Understood. That makes sense. And Brian, maybe just in the last, thirty seconds or so, if you could talk through, I know you mentioned the capital, that you have available. Just walk us through, I guess, what’s funded within the scope of your current cash runway?

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Yes. We ended the year with just over $900,000,000 in cash. That’s sufficient to get us well through the subcu Phase three program with $2,735 and well into Phase III with the oral. Depending on the decisions we make, we could potentially get through a Phase III program with the oral. But we think the runway with the end of the year balance sheet is certainly sufficient to get us through registration with the subcu.

So a good multi year runway at this point.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Great. All right. Well, unfortunately, we’re up against time, but I want to thank Brian for joining us and for the updates and congrats on the supply agreement and certainly a lot of data on the horizon here. We’ll stay tuned to the Viking story.

Brian Lianne, President and CEO, Viking Therapeutics: Thanks a lot.

Tom Smith, SMICCAD Biotech Analyst, Leerink Partners: Thanks, Brian.

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