Today’s Best Stocks to Watch: Weight-Loss Wars, Biotech and Critical Minerals

DENVER, Sept. 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (247marketnews.com) – The spotlight is heating up across four very different high-catalyst stories: Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) is pushing its VK2735 obesity program toward Phase 3 while exploring less-frequent maintenance dosing; NeOnc Technologies Holdings (NASDAQ: NTHI) is advancing its NEO100 brain-cancer program after encouraging Phase 2a results; Decoy Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DCOY) is expanding its antiviral platform into high-consequence viruses including Ebola; and Greenland Mines Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRML) is seeking to more than double its exploration footprint at the Sarfartoq rare-earth district.

Viking Therapeutics

The obesity-drug race is rapidly shifting from a simple question of how much weight patients can lose to how conveniently they can maintain those results. That is where Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) is trying to carve out a differentiated position with VK2735, its dual GLP-1/GIP agonist being developed in both injectable and oral formulations. Reuters reported this week that the broader weight-loss-drug market could reach roughly $100 billion in annual sales within the next decade, intensifying the race among large pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotech developers alike.

Viking's maintenance study is particularly relevant to that next phase of the market. The approximately 180-patient study was designed to examine whether patients who first receive weekly VK2735 can transition to less-frequent maintenance dosing. Viking previously described the study as evaluating weekly, every-other-week and monthly subcutaneous regimens, alongside oral approaches. The company's reported topline results indicate that patients transitioned to every-other-week dosing maintained up to 97% of their previous weight loss, while monthly dosing maintained up to 90%, versus 61% for the placebo-transition group.

The company is simultaneously pushing the program toward pivotal development. Viking said its Phase 3 VANQUISH-1 and VANQUISH-2 trials for injectable VK2735 were fully enrolled as of its second-quarter update, with Phase 3 development of oral VK2735 expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026. Earlier oral Phase 2 results showed mean weight loss of as much as 12.2% after 13 weeks, with up to 80% of participants achieving at least 10% weight loss.

CEO Brian Lian framed maintenance flexibility as a central part of the opportunity, saying the company is pursuing dosing options that could support individualized and long-term care after initial weight loss. The investment narrative therefore extends beyond another entrant into the GLP-1 field: Viking is attempting to demonstrate that frequency, formulation and durability can become competitive variables in a market increasingly crowded with heavyweight pharmaceutical players.

NeOnc Technologies Holdings

NeOnc (NASDAQ: NTHI) is attacking one of oncology's most persistent delivery problems from an unconventional direction: the company's NEO100 is administered intranasally, with the goal of using the nasal/olfactory pathway to deliver purified perillyl alcohol toward the central nervous system. The strategy is particularly relevant in high-grade glioma, where conventional systemic therapies face the formidable challenge of the blood-brain barrier.

In August, NeOnc reported topline Phase 2a results in 24 patients with recurrent or progressive Grade III and Grade IV IDH1-mutant glioma. The company reported six-month progression-free survival of 48.9%, compared with a prespecified 20% benchmark, with a one-sided p-value of 0.0047. Median overall survival was reported at 26.09 months, and five patients remained on treatment at the data cutoff.

The next catalyst is now regulatory strategy. NeOnc said it plans to request a Type B meeting with the FDA to discuss a potential registrational pathway. Management has also demonstrated financial commitment through open-market purchases: SEC filings show CEO Amir Heshmatpour and founder/CMO/CSO Thomas Chen purchased a combined approximately $629,000 of company stock following the Phase 2a announcement.

Decoy Therapeutics

Decoy Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DCOY) suddenly expanded the potential scope of its antiviral platform well beyond the respiratory-virus market. In July, the company announced that one of its Designable Multi-Antiviral, or D-MAV, candidates demonstrated in vitro activity against wild-type Ebola Zaire virus in testing conducted at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute. Decoy subsequently opened an exploratory program targeting filoviruses including Ebola and Marburg.

The scientific premise is ambitious. Decoy says its IMP³ACT platform is designed around conserved viral mechanisms, with the goal of creating antivirals capable of addressing multiple viruses rather than developing an entirely separate drug for every pathogen. The candidate generating the Ebola result was originally engineered around coronavirus entry and had previously demonstrated activity against coronavirus strains. Decoy says the same candidate also showed activity against Lassa fever virus.

CEO Rick Pierce described the potential strategic significance by saying that advancing the program through the FDA Animal Rule pathway “could allow us to efficiently address urgent biodefense needs through non-dilutive funding while expanding our multi-viral pipeline and proprietary computational database.” That pathway is important because certain high-consequence diseases cannot ethically or practically be evaluated through conventional human efficacy trials.

The Ebola result is preclinical, in vitro evidence; it does not demonstrate that a D-MAV candidate can prevent or treat Ebola infection in humans. Decoy remains an early-stage biotechnology company, and the next milestones involve additional preclinical work, regulatory interaction and eventual clinical testing. The company also raised approximately $3.5 million in initial gross proceeds through a June PIPE transaction, with additional potential proceeds tied to development milestones.

Greenland Mines Ltd.

Greenland Mines Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRML) is riding a resource story that has suddenly acquired a geopolitical dimension. Reports that the United States, Denmark and Greenland are preparing to formalize an agreement expanding the U.S. military presence on the strategically important Arctic island, while NATO is expected to play a larger role in Arctic security. The agreement comes as Greenland's deposits of critical minerals have attracted increasing attention from Western governments and companies.

Against that backdrop, Greenland Mines announced September 21 that it had applied for an additional approximately 262-square-kilometer exploration license immediately east of its existing Sarfartoq property. If granted, the expansion would take the company's Sarfartoq footprint from approximately 192 square kilometers to roughly 454 square kilometers — more than doubling its controlled area across the rare-earth district.

The existing ST1 deposit is the economic centerpiece. Greenland Mines reports a combined Indicated-plus-Inferred resource of approximately 12.2 million tonnes grading 1.32% total rare-earth oxides under its hybrid open-pit and underground scenario. An independent Initial Assessment cited by the company produced a high-case pre-tax NPV of approximately $2.05 billion. Importantly, Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not demonstrate economic viability, and the newly applied-for 262-square-kilometer area contains no defined Mineral Resource and is not included in the existing economic assessment.

President Dr. Bo Møller Stensgaard said: “This application is about building Sarfartoq at district scale.” He added that the strategy is to advance ST1 toward development while unlocking less-developed zones and testing the broader district for additional rare-earth discoveries. That creates a two-track story for GRML: advance a defined neodymium-praseodymium asset while expanding the exploration footprint at a time when Greenland itself is becoming more strategically significant in the global critical-minerals conversation.

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