Ascletis begins US Phase IIa study of oral obesity drug

HONG KONG, July 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascletis Pharma Inc. (HKEX: 1672, "Ascletis") announces today that the first participants with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related comorbidity have been dosed in a U.S. 13-week Phase IIa study of small molecule oral GLP-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist ASC30 for the treatment of obesity (NCT07002905).

The Phase IIa study is a 13-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and multi-center study to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability in participants with obesity (body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m2) or overweight (BMI ≥ 27 kg/m2 but < 30 kg/m2) with at least one weight-related comorbidity. Two oral formulations of ASC30, once-daily are being evaluated: formulation 1 (ASC30 tablets) and formulation 2 (ASC30 tablets A1). The primary endpoint of this Phase IIa study is the mean percentage body weight change from baseline at Week 13. The tolerability and efficacy data from the ASC30 oral Phase Ia and Ib studies (NCT06680440) support a lower starting dose and slower titration strategy for the 13-week Phase IIa study design of ASC30 oral once-daily (Press Release). The 13-week Phase IIa study protocol has a lower starting dose of 1 mg of both formulation 1 and formulation 2, with weekly titrations to the desired maintenance doses of 20 mg and 40 mg of formulation 1 or 20 mg, 40 mg and 60 mg of formulation 2.

Both formulations 1 and 2 have been evaluated in the oral ASC30 Phase Ia single ascending dose (SAD) study (NCT06680440). Formulation 2 demonstrated a flatter pharmacokinetic profile than formulation 1.

ASC30 was discovered and developed in-house at Ascletis as a first and only investigational small molecule GLP-1R biased agonist designed to be dosed once daily orally and once monthly subcutaneously for the treatment of obesity.

"We are happy that we are ahead of the schedule of our U.S. 13-week Phase IIa study since we have initiated screening of participants in June and recently completed dosing of the first participants," said Jinzi Jason Wu, Ph.D., Founder, Chairman and CEO of Ascletis, "We are looking forward to the topline data from this Phase IIa study in the fourth quarter 2025. As a small molecule, ASC30 has the potential to offer both once-daily oral and once-monthly subcutaneous injection dosing options for obesity treatment, if approved."

To learn more about Ascletis, please visit www.ascletis.com.