Shares of Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) were skyrocketing 32.3% as of 11:21 a.m. ET on Thursday. The big gain came after the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company provided its second-quarter update following the market close on Wednesday.

Viking reported no revenue and a net loss of $22.3 million, or $0.20 per share, in Q2. However, the company's financial results weren't the big story in the quarterly update. Instead, investors were excited that Viking plans to advance its experimental obesity drug VK2735 into a phase 3 clinical study after receiving written feedback from a meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Earlier this year, Viking announced overwhelmingly positive results from its phase 2 study of VK2735. Patients receiving the obesity drug achieved up to 13.1% placebo-adjusted mean weight loss after 13 weeks of treatment.

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Source Fool.com