Viking Therapeutics reports Q3 EPS (23c), consensus (11c)

At September 30, Viking held cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $376M vs. $155.5M as of December 31, 2022. “Q3 has been an exciting period for Viking,” stated Brian Lian, CEO. “We filed an IND for a Phase 2 trial for our newest program, VK2735, for obesity, and subsequently initiated the Phase 2 VENTURE study to assess the efficacy of this compound over a 13-week treatment period. As we recently announced, the high level of interest in this trial allowed us to enroll the study more rapidly than anticipated, and to exceed our original enrollment target. We also continued enrollment in a Phase 1 study evaluating an oral formulation of VK2735 to determine its preliminary safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile. We expect to report data from both of these studies in the first half of 2024. We also continued to advance our best-in-class thyroid hormone receptor beta agonist, VK2809, for NASH and fibrosis, and remain on track to report the histology results from the 52-week VOYAGE study in the first half of next year. As we advance our pipeline, we remain disciplined with our finances and maintain a strong balance sheet of approximately $376M. We expect this to provide operating runway through value-creating milestones for each of our programs.”