By Maggie Fick
LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca said on Monday its experimental weight-loss pill, licensed from China’s Eccogene, was safe and tolerable in an early-stage trial, with side effects consistent with the GLP-1 drug class.
The Phase I trial – which had 72 participants – was designed to assess the safety and tolerability of the pill, as is common in the earliest stage of clinical trials. People enrolled in the trial were either healthy, non-obese volunteers, or people with type 2 diabetes.
The results from the trial gave AstraZeneca confidence to progress the drug into Phase II clinical trials, Sharon Barr, the company’s executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals R&D, told a media briefing. She spoke before the data was presented at the ObesityWeek conference in San Antonio, Texas.
(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Editing by Jan Harvey)
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