This Under-the-Radar Healthcare Stock Could Soar in 2026

Key Points

• Structure Therapeutics is developing an oral medication for weight management.

• The upstart player in this growing field has some important catalysts on the horizon.

• Although the stock could soar on clinical progress, it looks too risky for most investors.

• 10 stocks we like better than Structure Therapeutics ›

The weight-management market is arguably the hottest therapeutic area in the industry right now. Investors seeking to capitalize on the rapid expansion of this niche can turn to established giants like Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Another approach is to invest in smaller, lesser-known biotech companies working in this area, which, due to their size, may have even more upside potential.

One notable example is Structure Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GPCR). This company has some catalysts on the horizon that could impact its stock price later this year and perhaps beyond.

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A massive commercial opportunity

Drugmakers are taking many different approaches in their quest to make waves in the weight-management market.

Structure Therapeutics' focus is on developing oral medicines. This strategy could pay off for several reasons. First, although the current leaders in the anti-obesity market are highly effective, they are administered via subcutaneous injections once a week. However, many patients would be willing to switch from the weekly injection to daily pills, so there is a market for the medicines that Structure Therapeutics is working on.

Second, oral pills are cheaper to manufacture and store, making them more commercially viable than injections with similar (or even slightly higher) efficacy. That said, all of these will matter for Structure Therapeutics only if it can produce robust clinical trial results.

The company's leading candidate is aleniglipron, an investigational oral GLP-1 medicine for the treatment of obesity. It is currently undergoing several phase 2 studies. One of them, called ACCESS, involves 220 overweight or obese patients with at least one weight-related comorbidity. The medicine is being tested at doses of up to 120 mg. Another phase 2 trial involves 80 patients and higher doses of aleniglipron.

Structure Therapeutics plans to initiate additional mid-stage studies for aleniglipron to assess the medicine in diabetes patients for body fat loss (as opposed to muscle loss) and to evaluate whether it can help patients previously on injectable GLP-1 therapies maintain their weight loss once they switch to oral pills. The biotech company expects to initiate these trials by the end of the year.

Plenty of upside potential -- and risk

Judging by Structure Therapeutics' planned and ongoing clinical trials, the company believes aleniglipron could be a versatile weight-loss drug. It could address several shortcomings of the current market leaders, from their injectable formulations to the fact that much of the weight patients end up shedding comes from muscle rather than fat. Needless to say, if aleniglipron reports strong phase 2 results later this year, Structure Therapeutics' shares will soar.

The drugmaker could maintain that momentum well into 2026 if it continues to post strong clinical progress. The market has had pretty high expectations for oral weight-management medicines. Eli Lilly's orforglipron helped patients who were overweight or obese (without diabetes) shed up to 12.4% of their body weight at the highest dose in 72 weeks in a phase 3 study.

But that wasn't enough to impress Wall Street. Viking Therapeutics' mid-stage oral candidate, VK2735, led to an up to 12.2% weight loss at the highest dose in 13 weeks, but it had high rates of participants dropping out due to side effects, leading to a massive sell-off for the mid-cap biotech.

Structure Therapeutics' 36-week ACCESS study will need to demonstrate strong efficacy, possibly in the early double-digit percentages, without showing significant rates of participants abandoning the trial due to adverse reactions. It's hard to predict whether Structure Therapeutics can pull it off, but if it does, its shares will soar. If it doesn't, the company's stock will plummet.

It's worth noting, though, that Structure Therapeutics has several other candidates across phase 1 and phase 2 studies. The company also has a decent cash position. It ended the second quarter with $786.5 million in cash, equivalents, and short-term investments, which management believes will last until at least 2027.

And if the biotech's studies succeed, it will almost certainly use the skyrocketing stock price to get additional funding by issuing new shares. With all that said, Structure Therapeutics is a high-risk stock, and those comfortable with significant volatility might want to consider initiating a small position in the company. However, investors with an average risk tolerance should steer clear.

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Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.