Zealand Pharma announced on 22 September 2026 that it has begun the registrational Phase 3 ZUPREME programme for petrelintide, its once-weekly amylin analogue, in people with overweight or obesity. The programme comprises three trials and about 7,000 participants, moving the candidate from small, short-duration studies into a much larger assessment. Petrelintide is not licensed in the UK and no marketing authorisation application has been made; what follows describes trial design and earlier research, not an available medicine.

The programme

ZUPREME-3 plans to enrol about 3,900 people with overweight or obesity who do not have type 2 diabetes. ZUPREME-4 targets roughly 600 participants who do have the condition. The third trial, ZUPREME-5, is designed for about 2,500 participants with established cardiovascular disease, extending the assessment to another patient group. For ZUPREME-5 the primary efficacy assessment is scheduled at week 64 and the study may continue for as long as three years — a reminder of how much evidence has yet to be collected.

What earlier data show

The Phase 3 design rests on short studies. In a Phase 1b trial, two low doses produced average weight loss of about 5% after six weeks, with no serious adverse events reported. A later 16-week Phase 1b study found mean weight reductions of up to 8.6%, against a much smaller reduction on placebo. These are short-duration findings in small groups; they establish tolerability signals and direction, not the longer-term outcomes a registrational programme is built to measure. Under a 2025 collaboration and licence agreement with Roche, petrelintide is also being developed in a fixed-dose combination with Roche's dual GLP-1/GIP agonist enicepatide (CT-388).

The UK position

There is no MHRA marketing authorisation for petrelintide. It is a pipeline research compound, unlicensed in the UK, and it is not available on the NHS or by private prescription. Any material sold as petrelintide is not a licensed medicine, and the research-use-only framing applies: the trials described here test efficacy and safety in supervised research settings, and they are not evidence for any available product.

This article is AI-researched and editorially reviewed. It is provided for research and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Research peptides are not licensed for human consumption in the UK.