(NASDAQ: AMGN) is well on its way to producing a medicine for obesity that could one day rival the blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound made by the segment's monarchs, Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY). If it succeeds, it'll be showing up to the market late, and it'll need to clear the high bar of proving that its product is worth using instead of the mainstays.

Is its stock worth buying on what appears to be its long shot at accessing a market that's already white-hot? The answer might surprise you.

While there's no guarantee that making a better medicine than the existing set of weight-loss drugs will succeed, there are a few pieces of information that suggest, even at this early stage, that Amgen's entrant might be a winner. Its anti-obesity candidate is called MariTide, and it's currently in phase 2 clinical trials. What makes MariTide special is that it uses an overlapping but slightly different, and possibly more favorable, mechanism of action than Wegovy and Zepbound do.

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Source Fool.com