LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca ( AZN ) 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.

AstraZeneca ( AZN ) shares briefly rose as much as 2.9% to a session

high after the data release, before paring some gains. At 1530

GMT they were up 0.7%.

The results from the trial gave AstraZeneca ( AZN ) 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.

One of those trials of the drug, called AZD5004, will focus

on reduction in body weight on average in obese and overweight

participants and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025,

Barr said.

When AstraZeneca ( AZN ) announced it had licensed the experimental,

once-daily obesity pill from Eccogene a year ago for up to $2

billion, it said it believed the treatment could cause fewer

side effects than current injectable treatments such Eli Lilly's ( LLY )

Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy.

"We saw a dose-dependent increase in nausea and vomiting

consistent with molecules in this class," Barr said in the

briefing, referring to the drug class of GLP-1 receptor

agonists, which slow digestion and reduce hunger. Zepbound and

Wegovy are both from this class.

There were no serious adverse events reported from either

trial, she said.

AstraZeneca ( AZN ) CEO Pascal Soriot acknowledged when the company

announced the Eccogene deal in November 2023 that his company

was "a few years behind" the roaring success of Novo Nordisk and

Eli Lilly ( LLY ) who were first to market with highly effective obesity

drugs.

But the company is now bullish on the prospects of its

obesity business. AstraZeneca's ( AZN ) experimental weight-loss pill

compares favourably to others in clinical development by rival

companies because it is a small molecule that can be combined

with other small molecule drugs, said Barr.

"That's very important," she said, adding that more than 60%

of obese and overweight people have at least one other medical

condition.

Barr also said data from a separate early-stage trial of 14

patients over 28 days showed that the AZD5004 pill can be taken

with or without food, with no need for fasting before taking.

U.S. biotech company Viking Therapeutics ( VKTX ) on Monday

released results from an early-stage trial of its own oral

obesity treatment that analysts said compared favourably to some

rivals in development, leading its shares to climb 9%.

Pfizer ( PFE ) and Lilly also have oral weight-loss drugs

from the GLP-1 class in later stages of clinical trials.