Led by executives who helmed The Medicines Co., Metsera Inc. has launched with $290 million in financing to develop drugs for treating weight loss, obesity-related conditions and metabolic diseases. The company is stepping into high profile and lucrative glucagon-like peptide-1 territory forged by Eli Lilly and Co.’s Zepbound (tirzepatide) for chronic weight management and Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy (semaglutide), also approved for long-term weight management.
Follow-on biologic makers in China have been working to capitalize on looming patent cliffs of blockbuster biologics. Advancing biosimilars of denosumab (Prolia/Xgeva; Amgen Inc.) and semaglutide are the latest examples.
Follow-on biologic makers in China have been working to capitalize on looming patent cliffs of blockbuster biologics. Advancing biosimilars of denosumab (Prolia/Xgeva; Amgen Inc.) and semaglutide are the latest examples.
A metabolite that suppresses appetite and food intake after exercise could be the reason for the weight loss observed in patients treated with metformin to control blood glucose. A study conducted by a group of scientists at Stanford University showed how this antidiabetic drug induced the biosynthesis of N-lactoyl-phenylalanine (Lac-Phe), which has an effect reducing the body mass index.
Tetra Pharm Technologies ApS has announced it is advancing its cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist, TPT-0701, into preclinical testing for appetite suppression.
The U.S. FDA cleared an IND for Neurobo Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s weight loss drug, prompting the company to say a phase I study in obesity will begin sometime during the first half of this year. The stock catapulted upward on the news.
A U.K. national health service (NHS) hospital has begun offering Allurion Technologies Inc.’s swallowable gastric balloon to patients struggling to lose weight for surgery. The move is a boon for the company amid rising competition in the weight loss market from GLP-1 agonists.
After flying high in 2022, digital therapeutics (DTx) companies crashed to Earth in 2023 and scrambled to identify a path to profitability, or at least continued viability.
In their year-end list of top scientific achievements and the people who made them, both Science and Nature have included the fight against “the obesity epidemic.” Science named GLP-1 drugs as its Breakthrough of the Year, while Nature included Svetlana Mojsov in its 2023 list of the year’s most important investigators. Mojsov is research associate professor at The Rockefeller University and was an early contributor to understanding the metabolic role of GLP.