Roche enters the weight loss market with acquisition
Almost two billion people worldwide are at least overweight. For the pharmaceutical industry with its new slimming products, this is a market worth billions. Roche is now also returning to this market with an acquisition. However, the drug in question is still in the study phase.
The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is returning to the slimming drug business with an acquisition worth billions. The Basel-based company is putting 2.7 billion dollars on the table for Carmot Therapeutics, as Roche announced. A further up to 400 million dollars would be due if milestones are reached. Carmot, which is privately owned, is developing active ingredients for the treatment of obesity and diabetes that can be injected or swallowed. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024.
Carmot, which is based in the Californian university city of Berkeley, is working on drugs that belong to the GLP-1 antagonist drug class. These were originally developed to control blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, suppress appetite and promote a feeling of satiety. The best-known representatives are Ozempic from Novo Nordisk or Trulicity from Eli Lilly. The weight loss injections, which are said to have helped celebrities such as Tesla boss Elon Musk and reality star Kim Kardashian to lose weight, have created a real hype - also fueled by social networks.
According to the World Health Organization, over 650 million adults worldwide are obese, more than three times as many as in 1975, and around 1.3 billion are overweight, which exacerbates diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
However, Carmot's active ingredients are not yet on the market. The most advanced product, CT-388, is ready for phase 2 development and is intended for the treatment of obesity in patients with and without type 2 diabetes and is injected once a week. The drug has the potential to improve weight loss and be used to treat other diseases. Other active ingredients are also in the clinical and preclinical development phase.
Vontobel analyst Stefan Schneider pointed out that Roche had withdrawn from the field in 2018 with the sale of rights to a GLP-1 antagonist to US pharmaceutical giant Lilly. While Novo Nordisk and Lilly have now launched their obesity drugs on the market, Roche's new drugs must first go through clinical trial phases 2 and 3. "Depending on the efficacy and safety of the new drugs, Roche has the prospect of gaining market share in this very large market," said the analyst. Roche shares rose 1.4 percent in early trading.
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The company being acquired, Carmot Therapeutics, is based in Berkeley and is focused on developing GLP-1 antagonist drugs for obesity and diabetes treatment. Roche's takeover of Carmot is expected to boost their presence in the slimming drugs market, which has seen a surge in demand due to the success of drugs like Ozempic and Trulicity.
Source: www.ntv.de
