Obesity drug maker Versanis to be bought by Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly on Friday said it can acquire Versanis, a privately held obesity drug maker, for as much as $1.93 billion to spice up the pharmaceutical giant’s weight reduction treatment portfolio. 

Eli Lilly agreed to pay Versanis shareholders in money, which is able to consist of an upfront payment and potentially subsequent payments if Versanis achieves certain “development and sales milestones.”

Oakland, California-based Versanis, which was founded in 2021 by biotech investment firm Aditum Bio, has one experimental drug for obesity and potentially other conditions.

Eli Lilly’s stock price rose 3% on Friday following the announcement.

The deal is Eli Lilly’s latest try to capitalize on the load loss industry gold rush, which began last yr after Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster injections Wegovy and Ozempic boomed in popularity. 

An estimated 40% of U.S. adults are obese. Analysts project that the worldwide weight reduction drug market could possibly be price $100 billion by around 2030. 

Versanis’ drug, bimagrumab, binds on to certain cells within the body to cut back fat mass.

The corporate is studying bimagrumab in a phase two trial in adults who’re chubby or obese, and in one other trial that compares the treatment with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic.

Bimagrumab works in another way from Novo Nordisk’s drugs and similar treatments from Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly. Those drugs, often known as GLP-1 agonists, mimic hormones produced within the gut called incretins to suppress an individual’s appetite.

But Versanis said combining bimagrumab with those incretin-based therapies could potentially lead to raised outcomes for people living with obesity and cardiometabolic conditions, which incorporates diabetes, kidney disease and disorders affecting the guts. 

Eli Lilly is working on several obesity treatments. 

The corporate’s once-weekly experimental injection, retatrutide, helped chubby or obese patients lose as much as 24% of their weight after 48 weeks.

That surpasses the load reduction attributable to other obesity drugs.

Eli Lilly’s experimental obesity pill, orforglipron, also helped chubby or obese patients lose as much as 14.7% of their body weight after 36 weeks.

The corporate can be pushing to approve its Type 2 diabetes treatment, Mounjaro, for obesity. 

Correction: Versanis’ drug, bimagrumab, binds on to certain cells within the body to cut back fat mass. An earlier version misspelled the name of the drug.