Viking started two Phase 3 trials of its oral obesity drug on October 14, 2026, each aiming for 560 adults over 68 weeks.1 This is Viking's second Phase 3 program for the same molecule. The injectable program began on June 25, 2025, about sixteen months earlier, and is already fully enrolled with roughly 5,500 people.12
The number everyone quotes for oral VK2735 is 12.2% weight loss, from a 120 mg daily dose over 13 weeks.3 Phase 3 tests 27.5 mg, 35 mg and 55 mg, so its top dose is under half of that.1
The same trial had a sixth arm that most coverage skips. Patients went up to 90 mg daily, then down to 30 mg daily for seven weeks. They lost 9.2%, or 7.9% against placebo.3 That beats the fixed 60 mg arm. A lower holding dose did more than a higher steady one, which is the best clue to why Phase 3 looks the way it does.
What did Viking announce on October 14?
Two Phase 3 trials, with no results attached to either.
Viking Therapeutics said it had started the SUNRISE program, made up of two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of oral VK2735.1 SUNRISE-1 takes "obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) or overweight (BMI ≥27 kg/m2) adults without type 2 diabetes who have at least one weight-related comorbidity". SUNRISE-2 enrolls "adults with type 2 diabetes who are obese or overweight".1
Each trial "will each target enrollment of 560 adults", with "patients receiving once-daily oral VK2735 for 68 weeks".1 The shared primary endpoint is "the percent change in body weight from baseline" against placebo at 68 weeks.1 The company reported no new efficacy data from SUNRISE, because there is none to report on the day a 68-week trial opens. It did repeat the Phase 2 figures, and it carried a correction to an earlier release. Both are below.
One number being quoted around this announcement is not in the release. The program is widely described as enrolling approximately 1,120 adults. Viking states 560 per trial and gives no combined figure, so 1,120 is arithmetic, not something the company said, and it is exact, not approximate.
The release also carries no trial registration numbers. ClinicalTrials.gov blocks automated reading, so the NCT identifiers for SUNRISE-1 and SUNRISE-2 could not be established for this page and none are printed here.
What doses will the Phase 3 trials test?
Three, all of them new to the program.
Both trials randomize participants to "once-daily VK2735 doses of 27.5 mg, 35 mg, 55 mg, or placebo".1 Independent coverage of the announcement reports the same three.4
The reason that matters shows up when you set the three against what Phase 2 tested.
| Daily oral arm | Mean weight change at 13 weeks | Reached 10% loss | In Phase 3? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Placebo | −1.3% | 5% | Yes, as comparator |
| 15 mg | −2.3% | 8% | No |
| 27.5 mg | Not tested | Not tested | Yes |
| 30 mg | −7.0% | 35% | No |
| 35 mg | Not tested | Not tested | Yes |
| 55 mg | Not tested | Not tested | Yes |
| 60 mg | −8.7% | 40% | No |
| 90 mg | −11.1% | 59% | No |
| 120 mg | −12.2% | 80% | No |
| 90 mg for 4 weeks, then 30 mg for 7 | −9.2%, or −7.9% against placebo | Not reported | No, but closest in spirit |
Phase 2 figures are from the VENTURE-Oral topline release of August 19, 2025, in 280 adults randomized to "one of six dosing arms or placebo" over 13 weeks. The last row is that sixth arm, which the release labels exploratory. Phase 3 doses are from the October 14, 2026 release. All read at source. These are the doses the trials administer, reported as such, with no guidance attached.13
Read the right-hand column. Not one of the five doses Phase 2 tested appears in Phase 3.
The same caveat applies to the responder figures Viking repeats in the Phase 3 release. "Up to 97% of patients receiving oral VK2735 achieved at least 5% weight loss" and "up to 80% achieved at least 10% weight loss, compared with 10% and 5% of patients receiving placebo, respectively".1 Both are "up to" figures, so both describe a best-performing arm. For the 10% threshold the Phase 2 release breaks it out by dose and 80% is the 120 mg arm. For the 5% threshold it gives no breakdown, so which arm reached 97% is not public.3 The Phase 3 secondary endpoints measure those two thresholds and two higher ones, at doses less than half as large. The program moved to three new doses, all of them below 60 mg, and the highest of them is 55 mg.
Why is the top Phase 3 dose less than half the one that produced 12.2%?
Because of what happened to the people taking the high doses.
One of the five subtitle lines on the VENTURE-Oral release reads "VK2735 Shown to be Safe and Well-Tolerated in 13-Week Study", and that line continues past a semicolon to note that 99% of gastrointestinal treatment-emergent adverse events were mild or moderate.3 The figures underneath it:
| VK2735 | Placebo | |
|---|---|---|
| Discontinued due to adverse events | 20% | 13% |
| Discontinued for any reason | 28% | 18% |
| Nausea | 58% | 48% |
| Vomiting | 26% | 10% |
All four rows are from the August 19, 2025 topline release, read at source.3 Every one of them is pooled across all six VK2735 arms. The release publishes no per-arm safety breakdown, so none of these rates can be attached to a particular dose, and the dose-response in the weight table suggests they are not evenly spread.
Independent coverage of the release reported that "The most common reasons for treatment discontinuation were gastrointestinal (GI)-related adverse events", and that "Viking stock plunged as much as 37% when the data were released".5
Losing as much as 37% in a single session, on a release whose subtitle called the drug safe and well tolerated, tells you how the figures read to people with money at stake. Viking has not stated why it chose 27.5, 35 and 55 mg, and this page does not claim to know. What the published data supports is narrower and more interesting than a tolerability story. The sixth Phase 2 arm, which titrated up and then held people at 30 mg daily, produced 9.2% against the 60 mg arm's 8.7%. A company reading its own trial would see that a lower maintenance dose did at least as well as a higher fixed one.
How many people stopped taking it in the Phase 2 trial?
One in five for side effects, and more than a quarter in total.
The release gives 20% discontinuing due to adverse events against 13% on placebo, so the drug added about seven points. On overall discontinuation, for any reason, it gives 28% against 18%, a ten-point gap.3 Both pairs come from Viking itself, not from outside coverage, and both are pooled across every dose arm.
Those are 13-week numbers, and that is the problem with them. SUNRISE runs 68 weeks, which is more than five times longer. Gastrointestinal effects on incretin drugs typically concentrate early and settle, and the coverage of the Phase 3 announcement notes that in VENTURE-Oral, "Of the drug-related treatment-emergent adverse events reported, 98% were mild or moderate", with GI events occurring early and subsiding with continued dosing.4
Both of those things can be true. Most events were mild or moderate, and a fifth of people still stopped. The 68-week trials are the first test of whether a lower dose holds people in the study long enough to measure anything.
What did Viking correct about its own release?
Its description of how often a dose is taken, the exact distinction readers get wrong.
The October 14 announcement includes a correction to an earlier one. Viking's release of October 6, 2026, titled "Viking Therapeutics Announces Initiation of VK2735 Oral Maintenance Dosing Clinical Trial in Patients with Obesity", "incorrectly stated that the trial would be evaluating, 'weekly oral doses.'"1 The company's correction says the trial "will be evaluating maintenance dosing options including daily oral doses, monthly subcutaneous doses, every-other-week subcutaneous doses, or placebo".1
So the manufacturer published the wrong dosing frequency for its own trial and took eight days to fix it. When the October 6 release was read for this page, it still listed both "daily oral doses" and "weekly oral doses" among the maintenance options, so the original text appears not to have been amended where it sits.6
The distinction is not pedantry. The oral and injectable forms of VK2735 are dosed completely differently. Oral is daily. Injectable is weekly, or less often in maintenance. Any page, calculator or forum post that carries one frequency while naming both routes is wrong for one of them, and the company itself made that mistake in print.
How many VK2735 studies are running, and which is which?
Three distinct things, announced inside a single month.
| Study | Route and frequency | Size | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance study, part 1 | Weekly subcutaneous for 21 weeks, then monthly, every-other-week or weekly subcutaneous, or placebo, for 12 weeks | About 180 adults | Topline results reported September 22, 2026 |
| Maintenance study, part 2 | Weekly subcutaneous for 21 weeks, then daily oral, monthly subcutaneous, every-other-week subcutaneous, or placebo | About 195 adults | Started October 6, 2026. No results |
| SUNRISE-1 and SUNRISE-2, Phase 3 | Once-daily oral, 27.5 mg, 35 mg or 55 mg, or placebo, for 68 weeks | 560 adults each | Started October 14, 2026. No results |
Sources read at source for each row.167
Part 1 used no oral dosing at all. Every arm was an injection, and the September release said the company "plans to explore oral maintenance dosing regimens in an upcoming part 2 to the current study".7 That part 2 is the October 6 trial, which is also the one whose dosing description Viking corrected.
Our report on the maintenance results covers what part 1 found, and the short version is that nobody in it lost weight on monthly dosing alone, because every participant spent 21 weeks on weekly injections first, so no arm isolates what monthly dosing does by itself.
Oral vs injectable VK2735: which is closer to approval?
The injection, by roughly a year.
The October 14 announcement makes this easy to get wrong, because a Phase 3 start reads like a drug arriving. For VK2735 the injectable form has been in Phase 3 since 2025 and is already fully enrolled.
| Injectable, VANQUISH | Oral, SUNRISE | |
|---|---|---|
| Program initiated | June 25, 2025 | October 14, 2026 |
| Route and frequency | Subcutaneous, once weekly | Oral, once daily |
| Doses | 7.5 mg, 12.5 mg, 17.5 mg, or placebo | 27.5 mg, 35 mg, 55 mg, or placebo |
| Treatment duration | 78 weeks, with a 52-week extension in VANQUISH-2 | 68 weeks |
| Enrollment | About 4,500 in VANQUISH-1, about 1,000 in VANQUISH-2, both fully enrolled | 560 per trial, 1,120 in total |
| Status | Enrollment completed November 2025 and March 2026 | Just opened |
Initiation dates are from the June 25, 2025 release and enrollment for both VANQUISH trials from the October 14, 2026 release. The 78-week schedule, the four arms and the extension period are from the March 26, 2026 release. The oral column is from the October 14, 2026 release. All read at source. Doses are what the trials administer, with no guidance attached.128
Read the enrollment row twice. The injectable program holds about 5,500 people. The oral program holds 1,120.
So a reader who sees "VK2735 enters Phase 3" in October 2026 is seeing the second of two Phase 3 programs. Measured the clean way, start to start, the gap is sixteen months. Viking announced the initiation of the VANQUISH Phase 3 program on June 25, 2025, and SUNRISE on October 14, 2026.12
The milestone gap runs the same direction. VANQUISH-1 finished enrolling in November 2025 and VANQUISH-2 in March 2026, both before SUNRISE opened its doors. Viking's chief executive has said the company looks forward to completing the VANQUISH studies in 2027, while 68 weeks of treatment starting in October 2026 carries SUNRISE into 2028 before any analysis begins.8
One more detail from the same trail. The oral start was on schedule, not early. Viking's July 29 quarterly update listed "Oral Phase 3 VK2735 Trial Initiation Expected 4Q26", and October 14 falls inside that window.9
Oral VK2735 vs Foundayo: how do the two pills compare?
The approved pill got to roughly the same weight loss over a far longer trial.
Foundayo, the orforglipron tablet, is approved and oral, which makes it the obvious reference point for an oral obesity drug starting Phase 3. Our guide on it reports 12.4% weight loss at 72 weeks on the highest dose among those who stayed on treatment, against 0.9% on placebo in ATTAIN-1, with adverse events causing 5.3% to 10.3% of participants to stop against 2.7% on placebo. Those figures come from our own published coverage rather than from a source read again for this page.
Set that beside oral VK2735 and two readings are possible, which is why the dose detail matters so much.
The bull case is speed. Oral VK2735 reached 12.2% in 13 weeks where orforglipron took 72 to reach 12.4%. If that pace held, the oral VK2735 curve would be somewhere well past both by 68 weeks.
The bear case is the dose and the dropout. The 12.2% came at 120 mg, a dose nobody will take in these trials, and at the 60 mg arm nearest the Phase 3 ceiling the 13-week loss was 8.7%. On tolerability the comparison is closer than the raw numbers suggest. VK2735's 20% stopping for adverse events sits above orforglipron's 5.3% to 10.3% range, but against placebo rates of 13% and 2.7% the excess over placebo is about seven points in both. VK2735's figure is also pooled across six dose arms where orforglipron's is a per-dose range.
Neither case is settled by anything published. What can be said is that the comparison people are making, 12.2% against 12.4%, puts a 13-week number at an abandoned dose next to a 72-week number at an approved one.
Can a 13-week result predict 68 weeks?
No. The two trials are not even testing the same doses.
The usual reason a short trial cannot predict a long one is that weight loss curves have not flattened and dropouts have not accumulated. Both apply here. On top of that, Phase 3 is not a longer run of Phase 2. It is a different set of doses, none of which has 13-week data behind it.
The closest thing to a reference point is the Phase 2 60 mg arm at 8.7%, which brackets the top Phase 3 dose of 55 mg from above. Whether 68 weeks at 55 mg produces more than 13 weeks at 60 mg is the open question, and it is a real one, since incretin weight loss generally continues well past 13 weeks.
What cannot be done is carrying 12.2% forward. That figure belongs to 120 mg, and 120 mg was left behind.
Is oral VK2735 approved or available?
No. It is investigational, and starting Phase 3 does not change that.
Viking has no approved product. Everything sold under the name VK2735 today sits outside any regulated supply chain, with no label, no pharmacy source and no manufacturer behind what is in a vial or a capsule. Our guide on buying unapproved peptides online covers what testing of that market has found.
A Phase 3 start is a statement about the company's confidence and its funding, not about the drug working. Two trials of 560 people each, running 68 weeks, will take well over a year to report before any regulator sees a filing.
What would the Phase 3 trials need to show?
Weight loss at a lower dose, and enough people staying in the trial to measure it.
The primary endpoint is percent change in body weight against placebo at 68 weeks.1 Secondary and exploratory endpoints include the share of patients losing at least 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% of baseline weight.4 Those thresholds are where an oral drug gets compared against the injectables, which is the comparison the market cares about and which these trials do not make directly, since the comparator is placebo.
The result becomes interpretable on three conditions. The first is a completion rate that does not repeat the 13-week dropout. The second is a 55 mg figure that beats the 8.7% its neighboring Phase 2 dose produced in a fifth of the time. The third is a discontinuation rate reported next to the weight loss instead of after it.
Until then, the accurate summary is that Viking has begun testing three doses that its own Phase 2 trial never ran, over a period five times longer than that trial lasted.
Common questions
Is oral VK2735 in Phase 3?
Yes. Viking Therapeutics announced on October 14, 2026 that it had started the SUNRISE program, two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of once-daily oral VK2735. SUNRISE-1 enrolls adults with obesity or overweight without type 2 diabetes, SUNRISE-2 enrolls adults with type 2 diabetes, and each targets 560 participants over 68 weeks. No results exist yet.
What is the difference between oral and injectable VK2735?
The route and the frequency. Oral VK2735 is taken once daily, and the Phase 3 trials test 27.5 mg, 35 mg and 55 mg. Injectable VK2735 is given subcutaneously once weekly, with maintenance studies testing every-other-week and monthly injections after a weekly run-in. The milligram figures are not interchangeable between the two forms, and neither are the schedules.
What dose of oral VK2735 is being tested in Phase 3?
Three doses, 27.5 mg, 35 mg and 55 mg, all once daily, against placebo. None of the three was tested in the Phase 2 trial, which used 15, 30, 60, 90 and 120 mg.
Did Phase 2 show 12% weight loss?
At the top dose. Mean weight change at 13 weeks was −12.2% at 120 mg, −11.1% at 90 mg, −8.7% at 60 mg, −7.0% at 30 mg, −2.3% at 15 mg, and −1.3% on placebo. The 12.2% figure belongs to 120 mg, which is more than double the highest dose in the Phase 3 program.
Why did Viking lower the doses for Phase 3?
The company has not said. What is on the record is that in the Phase 2 trial 20% of participants on VK2735 stopped because of adverse events against 13% on placebo, nausea occurred in 58% against 48%, and vomiting in 26% against 10%. Independent coverage put total dropout at 28% and reported that gastrointestinal events were the most common reason people stopped.
How long will the Phase 3 trials take?
Each runs 68 weeks of treatment, so results are well over a year away even before analysis and reporting. A regulatory filing would come after that.
Can the 13-week results tell me what 68 weeks will look like?
No, for two reasons. Weight loss curves on incretin drugs generally keep moving past 13 weeks, and dropouts accumulate with time. More importantly, Phase 3 is not a longer version of Phase 2. It uses three doses that have no 13-week data behind them.
What did Viking correct in its October 14 announcement?
Its own earlier release. The October 6, 2026 release about the oral maintenance trial incorrectly said the trial would evaluate weekly oral doses. The correction states the trial evaluates daily oral doses, monthly subcutaneous doses, every-other-week subcutaneous doses, or placebo. Oral dosing in this program is daily, not weekly.
Is this the same as the monthly dosing study?
No. The maintenance study is separate and has two parts. Part 1 used injections only and reported results on September 22, 2026. Part 2, started October 6, adds a daily oral maintenance arm alongside monthly and every-other-week injections. The SUNRISE Phase 3 trials are a third thing, testing daily oral dosing from the start rather than as maintenance.
Is oral VK2735 approved or available by prescription?
No. It is investigational with no approval anywhere, so there is no label, no approved dose and no pharmacy supply. Anything sold under the name today comes from outside the regulated system.
How many people will be in the Phase 3 program?
Viking says each trial targets 560 adults. The company gives no combined total, so the 1,120 figure circulating is 560 doubled, not a number Viking published.
Oral vs injectable VK2735: which is further along?
The injectable. Its Phase 3 program, VANQUISH-1 and VANQUISH-2, finished enrolling in November 2025 and March 2026, with VANQUISH-2 taking about 1,000 adults on weekly subcutaneous doses of 7.5, 12.5 or 17.5 mg over 78 weeks. Viking expects those studies to complete in 2027. The oral Phase 3 trials only started on October 14, 2026.
How does oral VK2735 compare with Foundayo (orforglipron)?
Our guide on Foundayo reports 12.4% weight loss at 72 weeks on the highest dose among those who stayed on treatment. Oral VK2735 reached 12.2% in 13 weeks, which looks faster, but at 120 mg, a dose nobody will take in these trials, and with 20% of participants stopping for adverse events against a 5.3% to 10.3% range for orforglipron. A real comparison waits for the 68-week data.
Where can I find the trial registration numbers?
The October 14 release does not include them, and ClinicalTrials.gov blocks automated access, so no NCT identifiers are published on this page. Searching the registry for SUNRISE-1 and SUNRISE-2 by name is the route to them.
Sources that could not be read for this page
- ClinicalTrials.gov. Both the website and the version 2 API refuse automated access, so the NCT identifiers for SUNRISE-1 and SUNRISE-2 could not be established and none are printed. Reports listing the trial registrations as verified sources are relying on something this page could not confirm.
Sources
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Initiation of VK2735 Oral Phase 3 Clinical Program in Patients with Obesity. Press release, October 14, 2026. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source, and the wire copy read separately to confirm the dose figures. Quoted: "SUNRISE-1 will include obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) or overweight (BMI ≥27 kg/m2) adults without type 2 diabetes who have at least one weight-related comorbidity"; "SUNRISE-2 will enroll adults with type 2 diabetes who are obese or overweight"; "SUNRISE-1 and SUNRISE-2 will each target enrollment of 560 adults"; "patients receiving once-daily oral VK2735 for 68 weeks"; "once-daily VK2735 doses of 27.5 mg, 35 mg, 55 mg, or placebo"; and the primary endpoint as "the percent change in body weight from baseline" "as compared to placebo after 68 weeks of treatment". The release gives no combined enrollment figure and no NCT identifiers. It also repeats Phase 2 figures: "mean body weight from baseline of up to 12.2%", "Up to 97% of patients receiving oral VK2735 achieved at least 5% weight loss", and "up to 80% achieved at least 10% weight loss, compared with 10% and 5% of patients receiving placebo, respectively". The correction to the October 6 release is quoted in full in the body of this page.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Initiation of Phase 3 Obesity Clinical Program with GLP-1/GIP Agonist VK2735. Press release, June 25, 2025. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source. The release that started the injectable program, and the basis for the sixteen-month gap on this page. States that the company "today announced the initiation of the VANQUISH Phase 3 clinical program for VK2735", comprising VANQUISH-1 at "approximately 4500 adults who are obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2)" or overweight with at least one weight-related co-morbid condition, and VANQUISH-2 at "approximately 1100 adults with type 2 diabetes who are obese or overweight". Both randomize to "VK2735 7.5 mg, VK2735 12.5 mg, VK2735 17.5 mg, and placebo" "administered by subcutaneous injection once weekly" "for 78 weeks". VANQUISH-2's eventual enrollment came in at about 1,000 against that 1,100 target, per the October 14, 2026 release.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Positive Top-Line Results from Phase 2 VENTURE-Oral Dosing Trial of VK2735 Tablet Formulation in Patients with Obesity. Press release, August 19, 2025. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source, then re-read during a verification pass for this page. 280 adults with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related comorbidity, 13 weeks. "Enrolled patients were evenly randomized to one of six dosing arms or placebo." Five were fixed daily doses of 15, 30, 60, 90 and 120 mg. The sixth was an exploratory low-dose maintenance cohort, titrated to 90 mg daily and then down-titrated to 30 mg daily for seven weeks after four weeks at 90 mg, which the release flags in a subtitle line as "Exploratory Assessment of Low Dose Maintenance Treatment Demonstrates Positive Proof of Concept". Mean body weight change at week 13: placebo −1.3%, 15 mg −2.3%, 30 mg −7.0%, 60 mg −8.7%, 90 mg −11.1%, 120 mg −12.2%, and the maintenance cohort −9.1 kg or −9.2%, reported as −7.9% against placebo at p<0.0001. Share reaching at least 10% weight loss, by arm: placebo 5%, 15 mg 8%, 30 mg 35%, 60 mg 40%, 90 mg 59%, 120 mg 80%. The 97% figure for at least 5% weight loss is given only as an "up to" figure with no per-arm breakdown. Safety figures, all pooled across the VK2735 arms with no per-arm breakdown published: discontinuation due to an adverse event 20% against 13% on placebo, overall discontinuation for any reason 28% against 18%, nausea 58% against 48%, vomiting 26% against 10%, and "the majority (98%) of reported drug-related treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were categorized as mild or moderate in severity". The release carries five subtitle lines, one of which reads "VK2735 Shown to be Safe and Well-Tolerated in 13-Week Study" and continues past a semicolon to record that 99% of gastrointestinal treatment-emergent adverse events were mild or moderate.
- Schoenthaler E. Viking Starts Phase 3 SUNRISE Program for Oral VK2735 in Obesity. BioPharm International, October 14, 2026. biopharminternational.com. Read at source. Independent confirmation of the three doses, the 560 per study target, the 68-week duration and the populations. Source for the secondary and exploratory endpoints covering the share of patients losing at least 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% of baseline weight, and for the Phase 2 tolerability framing that "Of the drug-related treatment-emergent adverse events reported, 98% were mild or moderate", with gastrointestinal events most common, occurring early and subsiding with continued dosing. This article reports no discontinuation figures.
- Mixed top-line results for Viking's oral obesity drug. Drug Discovery World, August 20, 2025. ddw-online.com. Read at source. Cited for the market reaction and the stated reason people stopped, not for any figure. Quoted: that the trial "successfully achieved its primary and secondary endpoints"; "The most common reasons for treatment discontinuation were gastrointestinal (GI)-related adverse events"; and "Viking stock plunged as much as 37% when the data were released". Note on a correction made during the verification pass for this page: an earlier version attributed the 28% overall discontinuation figure to this article rather than to Viking. The 28% against 18% on placebo is stated in Viking's own August 19, 2025 release at footnote 2, and this article was repeating it. The article cites no named analysts and attributes the investor concern generally.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Initiation of VK2735 Oral Maintenance Dosing Clinical Trial in Patients with Obesity. Press release, October 6, 2026. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source on October 14, 2026, which is the release Viking corrected the same day. Describes a "randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in approximately 195 adults with obesity", in which "all participants will receive initial weekly subcutaneous doses of VK2735 or placebo for 21 weeks" before transitioning to maintenance options, with the study running 33 weeks in total and exploratory endpoints measuring weight change from Week 21 to Week 33. The stated objective is to "evaluate the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic profile of VK2735 under these various dosing regimens"; no primary endpoint is named. As served when read, the page listed both "daily oral doses" and "weekly oral doses" among the maintenance options, which is the wording the October 14 correction addresses. No doses in milligrams are given for the maintenance arms.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Positive Top-Line Results from Maintenance Study of GLP-1/GIP Agonist VK2735 Demonstrating the Promise of Multiple Maintenance Dosing Regimens. Press release, September 22, 2026. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source. Part 1 of the maintenance study, in "approximately 180 adults with obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) and otherwise healthy". "All participants received initial weekly subcutaneous doses of VK2735 or placebo for 21 weeks", then moved to monthly, every-other-week or weekly subcutaneous injections, or placebo, for 12 weeks. No arm used oral dosing. The release states the company "plans to explore oral maintenance dosing regimens in an upcoming part 2 to the current study", which is the trial announced on October 6, 2026.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Announces Completion of Enrollment in Phase 3 VANQUISH-2 Trial of VK2735. Press release, March 26, 2026. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source. VANQUISH-2 is a "randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial" assessing "VK2735 administered by subcutaneous injection once weekly for 78 weeks", which "enrolled approximately 1,000 adults" with type 2 diabetes who have obesity or are overweight, randomized to weekly 7.5 mg, 12.5 mg or 17.5 mg, or placebo, with a primary endpoint of "the percent change in body weight from baseline" against placebo "after 78 weeks of treatment". The study "includes a 52-week extension period". The release states "Enrollment in VANQUISH-1 was completed in November 2025". VANQUISH-1's own enrollment of approximately 4,500 adults comes from the October 14, 2026 release at footnote 1, not from this one. On timing, the completion expectation is a quoted statement from the company's chief executive, "We look forward to completing the VANQUISH studies in 2027", which is softer than a formal guidance figure and is reported that way on this page.
- Viking Therapeutics. Viking Therapeutics Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Provides Corporate Update. Press release, July 29, 2026. ir.vikingtherapeutics.com. Read at source. Cited for program timing only. States "Phase 3 VANQUISH 1 & 2 Trials for Subcutaneous VK2735 in Obesity Fully Enrolled and Advancing" and "Oral Phase 3 VK2735 Trial Initiation Expected 4Q26", which places the October 14 start inside the window the company had given. No data timing is given for the VANQUISH trials in this update.