Eli Lilly soars as pill leads to 7.9% weight loss in late-stage trial

Shares of drugmaker Eli Lilly LLY.N rise 15% to $844.92, its best one-day win pct in more than a year

Company says its small molecule oral drug orforglipron led to an average weight loss of 7.9% and lowered blood sugar for overweight patients with type 2 diabetes in a late-stage trial

Shares of Structure Therapeutics GPCR.O, which is also developing a small molecule oral weight loss drug, up 9.8% at $20.35

U.S.-listed shares of Lilly's obesity drug rival Novo Nordisk NOVOb.CO down 7%

*BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman says the drug's efficacy appears comparable to semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo's GLP-1 weight loss treatment

*"The only other contemporary oral GLP-1 at the moment is NOVO's Rybelsus and it's a peptide with certain limitations" - BofA

Other weight-loss drug developers such as Viking Therapeutics VKTX.O down 1.6% and Amgen AMGN.O down 2.5%

Up to last close, LLY shares down 4.8%, VKTX down 41.2%, GPCR down 25.4%, AMGN up 5.8% YTD