A new startup aims to challenge Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s duopoly atop today’s market for obesity drugs.
The startup Metsera officially launched Thursday, announcing $290 million in an initial financing to advance multiple experimental weight loss drugs into the clinic.
Many details on Metsera’s clinical strategy, which will test combinations of various drugs, remain closely-guarded secrets. But Metsera’s lead asset is a GLP-1 agonist now in the clinic in the US, CEO Clive Meanwell said, with additional programs not far behind. The team is running head-to-head non-clinical and early clinical studies against Ozempic and Mounjaro, and plans to randomize its Phase 1/2 programs in that same manner.
“Certainly over the next six to 12 months, we’ll have a flow of clinical information which will allow people to assess whether we’re making progress that would be useful or not,” Meanwell said.
Endpoints News broke the news of Metsera’s obesity ambitions earlier this month, including the participation of top-tier investors like ARCH Venture Partners, Population Health Partners, GV, F-Prime Capital, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. (In that story, Endpoints reported that Metsera had $350 million in backing. Meanwell said the company had always intended to raise $290 million, though could have raised more if needed.)
Head-to-head trials are rare in the drug industry, typically reserved for fast-moving and intensively competitive areas like obesity. In particular, Meanwell said head-to-head designs can eliminate variability in how different studies coach patients on handling nausea or staying on the drug. Metsera can also quickly learn if it’s on the right path, given that weight loss data after one or three months can give a “good sense of where you are in a year or 18 months,” he added.
“You don’t want to waste investors’ money on something you dream is better, but it turns out to be actually not as good,” he said.
Looked at 200 companies — and still ‘not done’
The idea behind Metsera started before the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwell was just launching a new investment firm Population Health after his previous startup, The Medicines Company, was sold to Novartis for $9.7 billion.
Kristina BurowMeanwell said they saw “an awful lot of death and destruction” being driven by health conditions like hypertension, blood sugar levels and lipids, and were intrigued by early weight loss data out of Lilly and Novo. Meanwell connected with Kristina Burow, a managing director at ARCH who is now a director of Metsera and helped assemble an investor group to let Meanwell go shopping for assets.
Meanwell said they looked at about 200 companies, eventually striking deals to acquire Zihipp, a small London-based startup with a library of 20,000 peptides, and a licensing deal for a suite of assets from D&D Pharmatech, a Korean biotech with technology to deliver peptides as tablets.
“We looked at 200 companies, but we’re not done,” Burow said in an interview. “The team continues to look.”
Looking ahead to the next five to 10 years, Meanwell said he expects Lilly and Novo to be well-positioned with next-generation programs by the time semaglutide loses patent exclusivity in 2032.
“Our aim is to meet them at the corner,” Meanwell said.”When they get there, we’re very close to them with drugs that are at least as good… possibly better.”