Novo’s ongoing attempts to rejuvenate its pipeline have seen the Big Pharma turn to one of the most in-demand drug developers in China.
The Danish drugmaker is paying $300 million upfront to China’s Hengrui Pharma for a preclinical GLP-1/GIP dual receptor agonist. In return for the ex-China rights to the drug, Novo is also on the line for potential milestone payments that could eventually bring the deal’s total value up to $2.6 billion.
Hengrui has designed the candidate, dubbed HRS-1596, for once-weekly oral dosing. The therapy aims to suppress appetite, stimulate insulin secretion and improve insulin sensitivity, according to Novo, in order to support its use for obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases.
Hengrui has already secured the green light from regulators in China to take HRS-1596 into phase 1 trials, Novo said in a Sept. 29 release.
Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight loss drug Zepbound is a GLP-1/GIP drug, but the therapy is only available as an injection. Viking Therapeutics has a GLP-1/GIP tablet in phase 2 development, but it requires daily dosing.
As HRS-1596 has the potential to be developed for once-weekly oral administration, the therapy could “substantially reduce dosing frequency and improve convenience compared with current offerings,” Novo suggested.
Hengrui has risen to become one of the most in-demand sources of biopharma innovation in China. As well as scoring huge multi-billion biobucks deals with Bristol Myers Squibb and GSK for early-stage assets ranging across respiratory, immunology, inflammation and oncology, Hengrui was also behind the portfolio of obesity drugs that helped Kailera Therapeutics secure its record-breaking IPO back in April.
“Novo has pioneered the field of oral peptides and as leaders, we continuously look to advance our broad and deep oral pipeline across obesity, diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases through our strong internal capabilities and leading external innovation,” Novo’s Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange, M.D., Ph.D., said in this morning’s release.
“Hengrui Pharma has a proven track record of discovering and advancing innovative therapies with the patients in the center, and we are excited to add HRS-1596 to our growing pipeline and to explore its potential to raise the bar for convenience in the field,” he added.
Novo’s turn to Hengrui comes as the company’s leadership continues to try to persuade investors that the pharma has a long-term plan to strengthen the business after a rocky period of disappointing readouts, cancelled collaborations and ongoing challenges in the U.S. Novo streamlined its brand last week, with CEO Mike Doustdar telling Fierce that his team “felt strongly that we needed to make some radical changes” to adjust to a “radically changed environment.
Finding extended dosing options for its GLP-1 drugs has been a recent stated goal of Novo’s leadership, with the pharma striking a 1.17 billion euro ($1.3 billion) deal last week to combine Nanexa’s long-acting injectable drug delivery platform with Novo’s obesity and Type 2 diabetes drugs.