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Pfizer‘s newest bet on obesity is already showing promise.
The corporate last week said it will buy weight reduction drugmaker Metsera in an as much as $7.3 billion deal, including future payments, that is predicted to shut at the tip of the 12 months. Just every week later, Metsera released data from mid-stage trials on its lead obesity drug candidate that may allow the corporate to begin phase three studies on the treatment later this 12 months.
Metsera, founded in 2022, brings a pipeline of each oral and injectable treatments with different targets. The corporate picked up those drugs through its own licensing and acquisition deals. But all eyes are on Metsera’s injection, MET-097i, which is the furthest along in development.
The corporate is developing the injection to be taken once a month, which could offer a convenient edge over the weekly injections currently dominating the market. MET-097i is within the GLP-1 class, which is identical category as Novo Nordisk‘s obesity drug Wegovy and Eli Lilly‘s rival treatment Zepbound.
Early data suggest it could actually deliver strong weight reduction with fewer gastrointestinal negative effects than the treatments available on the market. The brand new data on Monday appears to back that up – not less than for now.
In a note Monday, JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott said, “more broadly, we proceed to see MET-097i as one in every of several emerging competitors that we consider will take some share” from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk over time. He called the outcomes “solid,” adding that the drug’s overall profile looks in step with Eli Lilly’s weight reduction drug Zepbound.
Let’s break down the outcomes.
How much weight did patients lose?
Metsera said the very best dose of its injection demonstrated weight reduction of as much as 14.1% on average after 28 weekly doses in a mid-stage trial called VESPER-1. Some participants lost rather more, with the very best being 26.5% weight reduction.
VESPER-1 has an ongoing extension study that features less frequent dosing options. Metsera said an exploratory evaluation at the tip of the weekly dosing phase of the extension at 36 weeks demonstrated “substantial and continued weight reduction,” meaning that no plateau had happened.
It’s difficult to match the outcomes to those of other drugs without head-to-head studies, but the burden loss brought on by Metsera’s injection appears to be encouraging. Wegovy caused around 15% weight reduction after 68 weeks in larger phase three trials. Zepbound has shown weight reduction above 20% in late-stage studies.
The opposite trial, VESPER-3, is ongoing, so Metsera didn’t report weight reduction data on Monday. That trial is examining monthly dosing of the injection, with initial weight reduction data expected by year-end or early 2026, in keeping with the corporate. The drug has a protracted half-life – or the time it takes for the concentration of the drug in your body to cut back by half – which makes once-a-month dosing possible.
How well did patients tolerate the drug?
Patients appeared to handle Metsera’s injection well in each studies, based on existing data. But we still need more detailed data from the trials to say whether it could actually be tolerated higher than the injections available on the market, while also offering competitive weight reduction.
The corporate said at a starting dose of 0.4 milligrams, its injection was as well tolerated as a placebo across each trials. Metsera said gradual, one-to-two step increases in that dose could give the drug a tolerability edge over rivals within the GLP-1 class.
In VESPER-3, patients who steadily increased their dose to the very best dose – 1.2 milligrams – over 12 weeks saw “little diarrhea, with only modest increases in nausea and vomiting.” Rates of nausea and vomiting amongst those patients were 13% and 11% above placebo, respectively.
Even at higher doses with out a gradual ramp-up, the injection’s negative effects in VESPER-1 were comparable to other approved weight-loss drugs, in keeping with Metsera.
Notably, only 2.9% of patients in that trial – two out of 239 patients – stopped treatment attributable to negative effects. While it’s only a mid-stage study, that discontinuation rate is encouraging.
Other obesity drugs in development have reported discontinuation rates nearing 10%, which is barely above that of the present treatments available on the market.
Overall, we still need to see late-stage trials on MET-097i and Metsera’s other drugs. If every part goes as planned, the corporate’s pipeline could deliver sizable returns for Pfizer down the road.
In a note last week, Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger said the firm estimates Metsera’s obesity candidates have the potential to generate greater than $5 billion in combined peak annual sales.
We’ll you’ll want to cover them closely, so stay tuned.
Be happy to send any suggestions, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at a brand new email: annika.constantino@versantmedia.com.
Latest in health-care: A high stakes Medicare open enrollment
Health insurers are prioritizing profitability over growth in Medicare Advantage for 2026, after grappling with higher-than-expected member health costs and regulatory reimbursement shifts which have eaten away at margins.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projects that the pullback in some plan offerings could lead to a decline in Medicare Advantage (MA) membership next 12 months. It will be the primary decline in greater than a decade. Still, the agency says the market stays stable and plan offerings are robust.
But Medicare brokers who help seniors enroll in plans say this might be one of the crucial disruptive enrollment periods in greater than a decade. Insurers are prioritizing plans with more restrictive provider networks, eliminating commissions on less profitable plans altogether. Analysts at Baird calculate that greater than 70% of those so-called decommissioned plans are PPOs, or wider-network preferred provider organization plans.
The big players have telegraphed lots of these strategies over the previous few months. Nevertheless, analysts say regional insurers are making a few of the same moves, and that might prove to be the wild card in the combo.
“The potential for Regionals to exit MA in meaningful numbers raises the stakes for national MA plans this 12 months, given an elevated risk of mispricing resulting in unanticipated growth,” wrote Evercore ISI’s Elizabeth Anderson in a note to clients Tuesday morning.
The looming government shutdown on Wednesday is one other unknown, though a former CMS official says it shouldn’t disrupt the open enrollment period because funding for the contractors involved within the process would have already got been allocated.
Seniors can get their first have a look at recent 2026 plans starting on Wednesday, ahead of the particular start of open enrollment Oct. 15.
Be happy to send any suggestions, suggestions, story ideas and data to Bertha at a brand new email: bertha.coombs@versantmedia.com.
