BIOBRIEF
AMG 513 is gone; Amgen's only near term obesity bet is MariTide, a late stage weight loss injection designed for four to six doses a year.
Amgen has stopped developing AMG 513, its second early-stage experimental obesity pill to be killed in under two years, leaving all of its near-term weight-loss hopes pinned to a single late-stage injection, MariTide.
The company disclosed the cull on its Q2 2026 earnings call. AMG 513 had only reached a first-in-human study in fall 2024 before an FDA clinical hold in February 2025. The hold was lifted months later; Amgen leaders said at the time the issue was not related to AMG 513 and that they still expected to push the program ahead. The phase 1 study will continue only for patients already enrolled, an Amgen spokesperson told Fierce Biotech, adding that "the bar is high at Amgen for obesity medicines" and that more on AMG 513 would come "in due course."
The move echoes a 2024 cull of AMG 786, another early obesity candidate. Then-chief scientific officer Jay Bradner said that drug "just did not meet" the bar set by MariTide.
With both shelved, Amgen's preclinical work is the only other obesity line. MariTide, an antibody-peptide conjugate that activates the GLP-1 receptor and blocks GIPR, is designed for roughly four to six doses a year. Its phase 3 program covers weight loss, cardiovascular risk, Type 2 diabetes, and obstructive sleep apnea, with key weight-loss readouts framed as arriving in 2027. That readout, against incumbents like Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, will test whether Amgen can clear the bar it keeps citing.