By Puyaan Singh

Sept 4 (Reuters) - Amgen ( AMGN ) will test its obesity

drug candidate in patients at risk of weight-related conditions

such as heart, liver and kidney diseases in its late-stage

trial, the company's CEO Robert Bradway said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley healthcare conference, Bradway

described MariTide as a next-generation obesity drug due to its

different mechanism of action and less frequent dosing compared

to Eli Lilly's ( LLY ) Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's

Wegovy, which require weekly-dosing.

"Our medicine is likely to be administered monthly or less

frequently than that, so that means we're giving a quarter of

the number of injections as the two competitors that are on the

market now, each month," he said.

Lilly and Novo have been struggling to produce enough of

their obesity medications to meet the soaring demand, though

Lilly ramped up its manufacturing in the last quarter.

"Some of their supply challenge is a function of the number

of injections they're having to provide. We start with the

benefit of doing a quarter of what they're looking to do,"

Bradway said.

The company had said in August it expects to have initial

data from a mid-stage trial of MariTide late this year.