Smaller obesity-focused players lagged far behind.\u00a0Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) fell about 4% over the past month, while Structure Therapeutics (GPCR ) dropped 13%.\u00a0Altimmune (ALT) and\u00a0Terns Pharmaceuticals (TERN) bucked the trend with gains of 6% and 1%, respectively.<\/p>\n
![\"koyfin_20260528_020631957.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/90b83b33de14a31280ad4ecfb0d982e8.jpeg\")
koyfin_20260528_020631957.png <\/p>\n
Now, Viking is now attracting fresh Wall Street attention after Truist assumed coverage with a \u2018Buy\u2019 rating and an $83 price target, implying an upside of 162% from current levels.<\/p>\n
Truist Sees Viking As A \u2018Differentiated Player\u2019 <\/p>\n
Truist called Viking as a \u201cdifferentiated player\u201d in what it a \u201chighly saturated\u201d and competitive obesity market. The brokerage said that Viking\u2019s obesity pipeline could help address two major challenges facing next-generation GLP-1 therapies: speed of efficacy and long-term patient adherence.<\/p>\n
Viking\u2019s flagship obesity candidate is VK2735, a dual GLP-1\/GIP receptor agonist being developed in both injectable and oral formulations for obesity and metabolic disorders.\u00a0 According to Truist, Viking\u2019s therapies have demonstrated the ability to drive 14.7% weight loss in just 13 weeks, with patients still continuing to lose weight rather than hitting a slowdown point. The firm also said Viking\u2019s plan to develop both injectable and pill-based versions of its treatment could help the company serve a wider range of patients and make long-term treatment easier to maintain.<\/p>\n
Truist also highlighted Viking\u2019s flexible dosing and titration strategy, which the firm believes could enable greater personalization while potentially reducing gastrointestinal side effects that continue to affect discontinuation rates across obesity therapies.<\/p>\n
Investors Reward LLY\u2019s GLP-1 Momentum <\/p>\n
Investor sentiment across the obesity-drug sector remained heavily tilted toward Lilly after another wave of bullish developments from its expanding weight loss franchise. The company briefly crossed the $1 trillion market cap milestone on Wednesday after continuing to benefit from surging demand for Zepbound and Mounjaro.<\/p>\n
Lilly recently raised its 2026 sales outlook after first-quarter revenue jumped 56% to $19.8 billion. CFO Lucas Montarce also said that Lilly plans to continue global obesity-drug launches despite uncertainty around the Trump administration\u2019s proposed Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) drug pricing policy, Bloomberg\u00a0noted.<\/p>\n
Montarce said that obesity competition with Novo is helping expand the broader treatment market rather than simply shifting share between companies. \u201cIt would be harder to have only Lilly moving this large class,\u201d Montarce said. \u201cWe feel actually having a competitor as well helps to mobilize more patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attention has additionally shifted toward Lilly\u2019s oral obesity pill Foundayo after the drug received FDA approval in April. Montarce said more than 80% of current demand is coming from new patients rather than existing obesity-drug users.<\/p>\n
This week, Lilly announced deals worth up to $3.8 billion to acquire three vaccine developers as it expands deeper into infectious diseases and long-term healthcare infrastructure. Investor interest for Lilly\u2019s pipeline also intensified after the company\u2019s triple-acting obesity drug Retatrutide showed up to 28% weight loss in late-stage data, potentially setting a new efficacy benchmark across the industry.<\/p>\n
Novo Pushes Back Against LLY\u2019s GLP-1 Lead <\/p>\n
Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar Mike Doustdar acknowledged during a recent Wall Street Journal interview that Lilly\u2019s Zepbound gained momentum partly because it pushed efficacy levels beyond earlier obesity therapies.<\/p>\n
Still, Doustdar said that the industry\u2019s long-term focus will eventually shift away from pure weight-loss percentages toward broader health outcomes for cardiovascular disease, kidney health and liver conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen is the last time you found a single person anywhere that you know of that died from obesity?\u201d Doustdar said. \u201cYou die from heart attack. You die from kidney failure. You die from fatty liver.\u201d The Novo CEO also defended the company\u2019s obesity strategy by saying that investors may currently be overfocused on small efficacy differences between competing drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile today everyone is obsessed with the magnitude of weight loss and 1% or 2% up and down on that moves people’s share prices dramatically, I will promise you that five years from now that will be part of the dialogue and not the main part,\u201d Doustdar said.<\/p>\n
Novo has increasingly leaned into oral obesity drugs as a major competitive advantage after the launch of its Wegovy pill generated more than 1.3 million prescriptions during the first quarter. Doustdar called Novo the \u201cpill leader in the world\u201d while stressing that many obesity patients prefer pills over injections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people that have been waiting and waiting and maybe with envy,\u201d Doustdar said. \u201cThey simply didn’t want an injection.\u201d The company also announced major U.S. price reductions for Wegovy and Ozempic from next year as Novo attempts to defend market share, while broadening access.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Doustdar said that Novo\u2019s obesity pipeline will remain highly competitive, pointing to the company\u2019s triple-agonist candidate UBT251 and saying that early comparative data appear favorable against Lilly\u2019s Retatrutide.<\/p>\n
How Do Retail Traders Feel About LLY, NVO, VKTX? <\/p>\n
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around LLY, NVO and VKTX was broadly \u2018bearish\u2019, with LLY seeing \u2018normal\u2019 message volume, while NVO and VKTX recorded \u2018low\u2019 chatter.<\/p>\n
One user\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201cHealthcare is going to converge towards s&p and LLY is going up with a multiple. Plenty of up in store!\u201d<\/p>\n Another user\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201c$VKTX Officially converted from buyout to gia club.\u00a0 There is simply to much potential here to take 20-30b and call it a day.\u00a0 Especially if we are nearing reta like efficiency with bic tolerability.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past year, LLY jumped 50%, while VKTX gained about 16%. NVO, however, fell nearly 35%.<\/p>\n For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<\/p>\n Read Next:\u00a0NIO Stock Jumps In Hong Kong: Investors Cheer Aggressive ES9 Pricing And Onvo\u2019s New AI-Powered L60 Push\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Deepti Sri has no position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. StockTwits’ news team content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. For more, see our editorial policy<\/a>. This article was originally published on StockTwits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Truist assumed coverage on VKTX with a \u2018Buy\u2019 rating and an $83 price target, implying an upside of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[20640,2832,272,618,49047,280],"class_list":["post-93868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novo-nordisk","tag-lilly","tag-mike-doustdar","tag-novo-nordisk","tag-viking","tag-vktx","tag-weight-loss"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116651459076478830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}