Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH partnered with Newcastle University and the University of Edinburgh to fund a £30 million (US$38 million) study into liver cirrhosis in a bid to provide scientists with new insights into liver health. The partners hope that the study will not only enhance the understanding of nonalcoholic or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (NASH/MASH) cirrhosis, but also help identify translational biomarkers using a cutting-edge approach called single-cell RNA sequencing to accelerate the development of future therapies.
A deal crafted in May 2022 between Novo Nordisk A/S and Flagship Pioneering has culminated into two separate research collaborations that are worth up to $532 million each in up-front and milestone payments for Omega Therapeutics Inc. and Cellarity Inc.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH’s start to the new year includes two fresh deals across two continents. BI struck one deal with Kunshan, China-based Suzhou Ribo Life Science Co. Ltd. and its Mölndal, Sweden-based subsidiary, Ribocure Pharmaceuticals AB, to develop small interfering RNA (siRNA) treatments for nonalcoholic or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. It struck a second deal with San Francisco-based 3T Biosciences Inc. to develop cancer immunotherapies, which builds on an earlier collaboration formed last year. Combined, the two deals are worth more than $2.5 billion.
Suzhou Ribo Life Science Co. Ltd. and Ribocure AB have entered into a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG to develop novel treatments for nonalcoholic or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (NASH/MASH).
Altimmune Inc.’s peptide-based glucagon-like peptide-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist pemvidutide hiccupped in a phase I study earlier this year but has bounced back with top-line results from its phase II study in obesity. Results showed robust reductions in body mass index and serum lipids, along with improvements in blood pressure with no imbalances in cardiac events, arrhythmias or clinically meaningful increases in heart rate. The data showed liver-fat loss similar to Novo Nordisk A/S’ GLP-1 drug Wegovy (semaglutide).
In a potential breakthrough for diagnosis and treatment development of liver disease, the Biomarkers Consortium’s Noninvasive Biomarkers of Metabolic Liver Disease (NIMBLE) project demonstrated that a blood test could diagnose nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an increasingly common liver disease in the U.S. The study, published in Nature Medicine, identified four biomarkers that outperform current liquid biopsies for NASH.
