VERU - Veru to Present at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference | Benzinga
MIAMI, FL, May 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Veru Inc. (NASDAQ:VERU), a late clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative medicines for preserving muscle for high quality weight loss, oncology, and viral induced acute respiratory distress syndrome, today announced that Mitchell Steiner, M.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Veru, will present an update of Veru's Phase 2b clinical program of enobosarm to augment fat loss and to avoid muscle loss when combined with GLP-1 drugs for weight loss at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at 11:00 am – 11:25 am ET.
A live webcast will be accessible through the Investors section of the Company's website at www.verupharma.com. Following the event, an archived webcast will be available on the Veru website.
About the Enobosarm Phase 2b clinical trial
The Phase 2b, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, dose-finding clinical trial is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of enobosarm 3mg, enobosarm 6mg, or placebo as a treatment to preserve muscle and augment fat loss in approximately 90 patients with sarcopenic obesity or overweight elderly (>60 years of age) patients receiving semaglutide (Wegovy®). The primary endpoint is difference in total lean body mass, and the key secondary endpoints are differences in total body fat mass and physical function as measured by stair climb test at 16 weeks. The Phase 2b clinical trial is actively enrolling patients from up to 15 clinical sites in the United States. Topline clinical results from the trial are expected by the end of calendar year 2024.
After completing the efficacy dose-finding portion of the Phase 2b clinical trial, it is expected that participants will then continue in blinded fashion into a Phase 2b extension clinical trial where all patients will stop receiving a GLP-1 RA, but will continue taking placebo, enobosarm 3mg, or enobosarm 6mg for an additional 12 weeks. The Phase 2b extension clinical trial will evaluate whether enobosarm can maintain muscle and prevent the fat and weight gain that occurs after discontinuing a GLP-1 RA. The topline results of the separate blinded Phase 2b extension clinical study are expected in calendar Q2 2025.
About Sarcopenic Obesity
According to the CDC, 41.5% of older adults have obesity in the United States and could benefit from a weight loss medication. Up to 34.4% of these obese patients over the age of 60 have sarcopenic obesity. This large subpopulation of sarcopenic obese patients is especially at risk for taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss as they already have critically low amount of muscle due to age-related muscle loss. Further loss of muscle mass when taking a GLP-1 RA medication may lead to muscle weakness leading to poor balance, decreased gait speed, mobility disability, loss of independence, falls, bone fractures and increased mortality which is a condition like age-related frailty. Because of the magnitude and speed of muscle loss while on GLP-1 RA therapy for weight loss, GLP-1 RA drugs may accelerate the development of frailty in older obese or overweight elderly patients.
About Enobosarm
Enobosarm (aka ostarine, MK-2866, GTx-024, and VERU-024), a novel oral daily selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM), has been previously studied in 5 clinical studies involving 968 older normal men and postmenopausal women as ...