Roche says early-stage obesity pill results were based on just six patients

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Roche said on Wednesday the promising results of an early-stage trial of its experimental weight-loss pill that bolstered its shares in July were based on just six patients, underscoring the uncertainty of the development project.

The Swiss drugmaker said in July that the once-daily pill CT-996 resulted in a placebo-adjusted average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks in obese patients without diabetes in a Phase I trial.

Presentation slides published on Wednesday showed that while the trial involved 25 participants overall - six of which were given an ineffective placebo for comparison - the result summary was taken from the best-performing of the three other subgroups on the experimental treatment.

The second-best-performing subgroup, which had seven volunteers, reached an average placebo-adjusted weight loss of 4.6%, the data showed.

The company reiterated that larger trials in the second of three development stages would start next year.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Matthias Williams and Jan Harvey)