Roche said its obesity treatment delivered almost 19 per cent weight loss in early trials, as the Swiss pharmaceutical company seeks to rival Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s dominance in the booming sector.

Roche’s once-weekly CT-388 injection led to “clinically meaningful and statistically significant” results for patients with obesity compared with a placebo, resulting in weight loss of 18.8 per cent over 24 weeks. Side effects were similar to other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, the company said on Thursday, including nausea and vomiting. Shares in Roche rose by almost 5 per cent in morning trading.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly already have follow-up treatments to their blockbuster weight-loss drugs in mid-stage trials and analysts expect them to continue to dominate the sector.