Novo Nordisk is doubling down on its efforts in obesity after securing an FDA green light for Wegovy last June.
The Danish pharma will look at food intake regulation and other metabolic characteristics in a research collaboration with little-known startup EraCal Therapeutics. The fledgling Swiss biotech, founded out of Harvard University and the University of Zurich, will jointly work (PDF) with Novo Nordisk on new molecules for potential therapeutics to treat obesity.
Terms of the deal were kept under wraps. EraCal’s chair Ann Kessler, Ph.D., has experience in obesity programs through her former senior research positions at Roche, where she helped bring weight loss medication Xenical to market, EraCal said.
Novo and EraCal will investigate the new molecules using zebrafish larvae, a vertebrate drug discovery platform, which will help the duo understand the signaling pathways that could be targets for medications to control metabolic health, EraCal said Monday.
“Combining EraCal’s phenotypic screening platform with Novo Nordisk’s expertise within pharmaceutical peptides and metabolic diseases will contribute to the discovery of novel drug candidates for the treatment of obesity,” said EraCal CEO Josua Jordi in a statement.
The FDA gave the thumbs-up to Wegovy, originally approved to treat diabetes, last summer to treat obesity along with diet and exercise. The drug, known as semaglutide, is also being tested in a phase 3 trial in heart failure. Novo has another midstage obesity asset and three phase 1 trials across its obesity portfolio.
For its part, EraCal is developing a preclinical asset, dubbed Era-379, that aims to suppress appetite. The company was founded in 2018.
In a sign of the potential landscape for obesity treatments, Eli Lilly made a $1.5 billion biobucks bet on potential metabolic and obesity meds from Regor Therapeutics in December.
Lilly is Novo’s main competitor in the field. The Indy Big Pharma is testing tirzepatide in a pivotal trial in obesity with data slated for release in April. The drug is at the FDA’s doorstep already for another indication: diabetes. CEO Dave Ricks said the pharma is weighing the idea of branding the drug separately for the two conditions, like Novo did with Wegovy and Ozempic, at last week’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.