Many companies in the biotech industry performed well last year. Two in particular stood out: Viking Therapeutics (VKTX 3.50%) and Summit Therapeutics (SMMT -2.71%). Both saw their shares more than double in 2024, thanks to strong clinical progress. While these two drugmakers still don't have any approved products on the market, both could still see above-average returns in 2025. Let's look deeper at Viking's and Summit's prospects this year and beyond.

1. Viking Therapeutics

Viking Therapeutics got the market's attention with robust phase 2 results for VK2735, a potential weight loss therapy. VK2735 is a dual GLP-1/GIP medicine, the same class as Eli Lilly's Zepbound. While that doesn't guarantee success, the company could make even more progress in 2025.

Viking Therapeutics should start phase 3 trials for this candidate and for VK2809, a potential treatment for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) that also aced phase 2 studies.

Note, in both of these markets, there remains a high unmet need. The weight loss field is projected to grow significantly through the end of the decade, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first MASH therapy last year. Plenty of companies larger than Viking Therapeutics are working on similar projects, but the mid-cap biotech has delivered progress that puts most of its larger peers to shame. Further, Viking Therapeutics is developing several other medicines.

In contrast to the single-product focus of many smaller pharmaceutical companies, Viking chose to develop several weight loss options. Excluding the promising oral version of VK2735 in phase 1 studies, Viking Therapeutics has what seems to be a solid candidate in preclinical testing.

It's much too early to get too excited about that one, but Viking Therapeutics' continued efforts could bear more fruit. The drugmaker won't launch a product in 2025 and won't become profitable. Virtually no clinical-stage biotech company is.

However, Viking Therapeutics' progress in 2025 could again attract an army of investors to bid up its share price. So, the stock could deliver another strong performance this year.

2. Summit Therapeutics

Summit Therapeutics could be holding a potential blockbuster drug, not to mention a solid pipeline for other indications. The company entered an agreement with China-based Akeso Biopharma, which initially created a cancer medicine called ivonescimab.

Summit acquired the rights to develop and market this drug in many countries, including North America. Ivonescimab is already approved in China, and in September, it reported positive phase 3 results in treating patients with non-small cell lung cancer and PD-L1 protein overexpression.

Moreover, ivonescimab performed better than the market leader, Merck's Keytruda, in this trial. Keytruda is the world's best-selling drug, and the NSCLC market is one of its most important. Summit Therapeutics still has to run studies in the U.S. to earn approval in the country. The company is currently doing so.

One of Summit Therapeutics' ongoing trials in the U.S. is a phase 3 study for ivonescimab in second-line advanced NSCLC, a potential indication for which it has received the fast track designation from the FDA, which comes with various perks aimed at speeding up the development of therapies with high unmet needs.

Summit Therapeutics plans on releasing top-line data from this trial in mid 2025. Positive results could make the stock move in the right direction.

In the meantime, the drugmaker will start more phase 3 studies. Further, ivonescimab is undergoing many trials in China, some of which should report progress next year.

As Summit Therapeutics gets closer to challenging Keytruda with solid clinical progress, the company's stock market performance will remain strong. 2025 could be yet another excellent year for this drugmaker.