Investors shouldn't get discouraged about this mounting competition for Viking, as the biotech clearly has an efficacious drug and is well advanced in developing it for commercialization.

But innovative new products are only part of the equation, because even the most efficacious drugs will only work as part of a holistic programme of care that includes mental health support.

Not only do we want to have efficacious drugs, we want to reduce toxicity, improve tolerability, so patients stay on treatment.” Kivu aims for each of its drugs to achieve single-agent activity.

The need for safe and efficacious drug therapies is great, and presently unmet. The two drugs currently licensed in the USA for the long-term treatment of obesity, orlistat and sibutramine ...

"This would be the most highly efficacious drug ever approved for the treatment of obesity," said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine expert at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.