LONDON/COPENHAGEN(Reuters) - Novo Nordisk said on Friday its experimental next-generation obesity drug CagriSema helped patients cut their weight by 22.7% in a late-stage trial, below the 25% it had expected, wiping as much as $125 billion off its market value.

The lower-than-expected weight loss from the drug candidate deals a blow to the Danish company's ambitions for a successor to its popular Wegovy that is more powerful than Eli Lilly's ( LLY ) rival Zepbound, also known as Mounjaro.

Investors and analysts had eagerly awaited this data as a test of Novo's case that it has a strong pipeline of drugs to follow Wegovy in the fiercely competitive anti-obesity market.

Novo's share price fell as much as 27% after the results were announced on Friday, to their lowest since August 2023.

Shares in U.S. rival Lilly rose more than 7% in pre-market trade.

Novo said if all people adhered to treatment with CagriSema, patients overall achieved weight loss of 22.7% after 68 weeks, with 40.4% losing 25% or more.

The data from the Phase III trial was based on about 3,400 people with a body mass index (BMI) of or above 30, or people with a BMI of 27 and at least one weight-related comorbidity like hypertension or cardiovascular disease.

Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president for development, said Novo was "encouraged" by the data.

He said only 57% of patients in the trial reached the highest dose, adding: "With the insights obtained from the REDEFINE 1 trial, we plan to further explore the additional weight loss potential of CagriSema."

Novo said the drug had similar side effects compared to its GLP-1 drugs already on the market. The most common adverse events with CagriSema were gastrointestinal, and the vast majority were mild to moderate and diminished over time, consistent with the GLP-1 receptor agonist class, it said.

WEEKLY INJECTION

CagriSema is a weekly injection which combines semaglutide, which is the active ingredient in Wegovy and mimics the gut hormone GLP-1, and a separate molecule called cagrilintide that mimics the pancreatic hormone amylin, into a weekly injection.

The two hormones combined suppress hunger and help control patients' blood glucose.

Novo's trial is the most advanced for an amylin drug candidate currently being tested in the market.

The success of Wegovy helped make Novo Europe's biggest company by market capitalisation, worth more than $460 billion. Its shares have been under pressure this year, however, significantly underperforming those of chief rival Lilly, due mainly to concerns Novo may be losing its first-mover advantage in the obesity drug race.

Lilly's own obesity injection - sold as Zepbound in the United States and Mounjaro in other markets where it has launched - led to an average weight loss of nearly 23% in clinical trials.

(This story has been corrected to read $125 billion, not $150 billion, in first bullet point)