Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

POTOMAC, Md.--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Versant Ventures today announced the debut of Pep2Tango Therapeutics Inc., a startup focused on innovative, next-generation weight loss therapies. Proceeds from the significant, undisclosed round will support development of the company’s novel unimolecular tetra-receptor agonist peptides to treat obesity and related conditions. GLP-1-based therapies have proven efficacy in treating obesity and associated co-morbidities, but come with significant drawbacks. These include up to 40% of weight loss from muscle mass reduction, potentially leading to long-term side effects, especially in elderly patients. This limitation, in addition to tolerability issues, reduces the long-term utility of these agents. Pep2Tango’s lead drug candidates are engineered to overcome these drawbacks. They are unimolecular multi-receptor peptide agonists that target GLP-1, GIP, amylin and calcitonin receptors. This unique combination of targets in one molecule is truly differentiated with key advantages compared with first-generation drugs on the market and therapies currently in development. Preclinical studies of Pep2Tango’s molecules have demonstrated superior weight loss versus tirzepatide, primarily through selective fat mass loss with preservation of muscle mass, improved blood lipid profiles, better glycemic control, and beneficial effects on the liver. The company’s programs were developed by a deeply experienced team led by President, CEO and Chairperson Cristina Rondinone, Ph.D., and CSO Soumitra Ghosh, Ph.D. Dr. Rondinone previously was president of Cellarity, and SVP and head of cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases at AstraZeneca plc. Prior to that, she held roles of increasing responsibility in cardio-metabolic disease research and development at MedImmune Inc., Roche and Abbott Laboratories, where she led the research and development of multiple molecules that moved to clinical trials including Rezdiffra ™ , dorzagliatin and bentracimab. Dr. Ghosh is a co-founder of multiple biotech companies and served as executive director for research at Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he was involved in development efforts culminating in the approvals of Byetta ® , Symlin ® , Bydureon ® and Myalept ® . Dr. Ghosh also served as president of the Peptide Therapeutics Foundation. “We are delighted that Versant is backing Pep2Tango as we advance our programs towards clinical development,” said Dr. Rondinone. “There is a critical need to develop safe and highly efficacious drug therapies for obesity that preserve muscle mass and Pep2Tango’s approach should positively impact the lives of patients.” “We are thrilled to partner with the seasoned team of experts at Pep2Tango,” said Carlo Rizzuto, Ph.D., managing director at Versant and a Pep2Tango board member. “We are convinced that the company’s tetra-receptor agonists have best-in-category potential with respect to magnitude and quality of weight loss, as well as improving metabolic and cardiovascular health, that could redefine obesity treatment.” Pep2Tango Therapeutics is focused on CMC development activities to scale up drug candidate manufacturing and on running IND-enabling studies for a rapid transition to first-in-human clinical studies. An IND submission is expected in 2025. About Pep2Tango Therapeutics Inc. Pep2Tango Therapeutics is a biotechnology company founded in 2021 by seasoned pharmaceutical executives with a long track record of successful drug development. The company’s vision is to develop next generation peptide drugs that target unmet medical needs, including for metabolic, endocrine, CNS and cardiovascular disorders. Pep2Tango’s novel drug development approach for obesity focuses on unimolecular peptides that target multiple receptors, allowing for superior weight loss efficacy, muscle mass preservation, improved tolerability, and streamlined development and manufacturability. The company is backed by Versant Ventures. About Versant Ventures Versant Ventures is a leading healthcare venture capital firm committed to helping exceptional entrepreneurs build the next generation of great companies. The firm’s emphasis is on biotechnology companies that are discovering and developing novel therapeutics. With $5.5 billion under management and offices in the U.S., Canada and Europe, Versant has built a team with deep investment, operating and R&D expertise that enables a hands-on approach to company building. Since the firm’s founding in 1999, more than 100 Versant companies have achieved successful acquisitions or IPOs. For more information, please visit www.versantventures.com .

SAN ANTONIO — Zealand Pharma, hoping to create the next “foundational” therapy for obesity, detailed more Phase 1 data on its amylin analog that was the backbone of a $1 billion raise this summer. Researchers said Zealand’s drug, dubbed petrelintide, led to up to 8.6% mean weight loss in an early-phase trial. Also, all gastrointestinal disorders observed in the study were mild, save for a moderate case of nausea and a moderate incidence of vomiting. The data were presented Tuesday at the annual ObesityWeek conference in Texas. Zealand initially toplined the data in June and quickly raised $1 billion for the “ crown jewel .” Analysts have predicted petrelintide could reach peak sales of $10 billion. At week 16 in the Phase 1, patients on 2.4 mg petrelintide lost a mean 4.8% body weight. The middle-dose group, 4.8 mg, lost the most at 8.6%, and the 9 mg group saw 8.3% reductions, the researchers said. The drop was 1.7% for the placebo cohort. Petrelintide could potentially have GLP-1-like weight loss of 15% to 20% in larger studies, Zealand chief medical officer David Kendall told Endpoints News on the sidelines of the conference. It also believes amylin agonists could help preserve lean muscle mass, an issue that has come up with the GLP-1 class. The company will dose the first patient in a Phase 2 trial in the coming days or weeks, Kendall said. The study will “elucidate” the differences between the 4.8 mg and 9 mg doses, he said. Zealand is positioning the drug as a potential standalone replacement for GLP-1s or as the first medicine that patients go to for obesity, but the company isn’t excluding the opportunity to combine with GLP-1s or other mechanisms, Kendall said. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have dominated the field so far, but their GLP-1-based medicines carry GI tolerability baggage, among other challenges. Rather than suppress appetite and give patients a “food aversion” signal like the GLP-1s, amylin emphasizes the satiety signal, Kendall said. In his career, he’s worked in both the amylin field at Amylin Pharmaceuticals and on GLP-1s and other mechanisms at Lilly. “If you’ve had a meal here in Texas, you know what satiety feels like. That sense of, I’ve had enough, maybe a little bit too much,” Kendall said. “It actually enhances that signal so you don’t have that same food aversion, the lack of interest. So people tend to eat.” Petrelintide has a 240-hour half-life, or about 10 days, Kendall said. Novo, Lilly, AstraZeneca and multiple other drugmakers are also working on amylin. The field awaits a key Phase 3 readout this quarter from Novo’s CagriSema, a combination of the amylin asset cagrilintide and its blockbuster semaglutide. Novo’s amylin drug “will always be tied to semaglutide,” Kendall said. “We see petrelintide as the next potentially foundational class of therapies going forward. I know it seems maybe aspirational to say over and above what is a pretty successful GLP-1-based therapeutic class.” Structure Therapeutics, which plans to start testing its amylin candidate in humans next year, is looking up to Zealand’s progress. “Zealand is probably the pioneer in terms of pushing the monotherapy as part of their strategy,” Structure CEO Raymond Stevens said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. “Some of the hypothesis is: amylin has the potential for better tolerability by itself, amylin alone, versus GLP-1.” As Zealand works on the Phase 2, it is looking for a large pharma to help carry petrelintide into Phase 3 and make it a standalone drug. With a fresh $1 billion, though, Zealand is “not backs-against-the-wall,” Kendall said. “The most important thing is not just to find someone with lots of people and deep pockets, but someone who believes in the positioning we’ve talked about.” Zealand already has a partner for its lead obesity drug, the Boehringer Ingelheim-allied survodutide, a glucagon/GLP-1 receptor dual agonist.

A scale and fat cells Taylor Tieden for BioSpace In this deep dive BioSpace dissects the global obesity and diabetes markets along with the growing pipelines that aim to serve them. The global obesity market is forecasted to reach between $100 billion and $160 billion in the next decade. Meanwhile, the market for type 2 diabetes, which is closely related, is predicted to exceed $70 billion by 2032. There is thus considerable opportunity for Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and the multitude of other biopharma companies vying for a piece of the lucrative pie. Weight-Loss Market Estimates and Projections Source: IQVIA, Reuters, Goldman Sachs Taylor Tieden for BioSpace While exceedingly successful, many suspect the current GLP-1 injection therapies for obesity will ultimately be replaced by oral GLP-1 drugs, and several companies, including Lilly, Novo and Pfizer, are racing to bring their versions to the market. In addition, the space is not limiting itself to GLP-1s but is also exploring novel mechanisms to tackle these widespread diseases. Here, BioSpace examines the current obesity and diabetes markets along with the growing pipelines that aim to serve them. Weight Loss: A Two-Horse Race The obesity market is currently dominated by two companies: Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. While Novo’s obesity drug Wegovy had a two-year head start on Lilly’s Zepbound, the latter is making up ground . On August 7, Novo reported its second-quarter earnings , revealing profits of $1.7 billion for Wegovy and $4.23 billion for diabetes drug Ozempic. Despite growth rates of 53% and 30%, respectively, for the drugs, investors were not impressed because analyst forecasts were missed. Lilly, on the other hand, beat Q2 expectations , bringing in $1.24 billion for Zepbound and $3.1 billion for diabetes treatment Mounjaro. But the future is much more than a two-horse race. Several companies, including Pfizer , Roche , Viking Therapeutics , and Rivus Pharmaceuticals, are developing obesity therapeutics. Some leverage the GLP-1 pathway, while others commit to different mechanisms, including amylin analogs and mitochondrial uncoupling. Other players in the space include Veru Pharmaceuticals, Regeneron, Altimmune, Amgen, and Amylyx. Approval Timeline The obesity space truly caught fire with the clinical success of Wegovy and Zepbound, but these products follow several other treatments for obesity and diabetes approved over the past two-plus decades. Here is a sampling of noteworthy products. November 2023 Eli Lilly, Zepbound Generic name: Tirzepatide Treatment: Weight management June 2022 Vivus, Qsymia Generic names: Phentermine and topiramate Treatment: Weight management in pediatric patients May 2022 Eli Lilly, Mounjaro Generic name: Tirzepatide Treatment: Type 2 diabetes June 2021 Novo Nordisk, Wegovy Generic name: Semaglutide Treatment: Obesity December 2020 Novo Nordisk, Saxenda Generic name: Liraglutide Treatment: Obesity in adolescents September 2019 Novo Nordisk, Rybelsus Generic name: Semaglutide Treatment: Type 2 diabetes (pill form) December 2017 Novo Nordisk, Ozempic Generic Name: semaglutide Treatment: Type 2 diabetes September 2014 Takeda, Contrave Generic names: Naltrexone and bupropion Treatment: Weight loss July 2012 Vivus, Qsymia Generic names: Phentermine and topiramate Treatment: Weight management in adult patients January 2010 Novo Nordisk, Victoza Generic name: Liraglutide Treatment: Type 2 diabetes April 2005 Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Byetta Generic name: Exenatide Treatment: Type 2 diabetes The Highly Sought Weight-Loss Pill In 2019, the FDA approved Novo’s Rybelsus as the first oral GLP-1 for type 2 diabetes. Considered by many to be the next frontier in obesity treatment, oral medicines are under development by a number of companies, including Novo, whose amycretin is in Phase I trials, and Lilly, which has a Phase III trial underway for orforglipron. Brazilian owned multinational company Eurofarma also has a Phase III study underway for its oral candidate sibutramine/topiramate XR. Meanwhile, a host of companies have oral assets in earlier-stage trials. Pfizer recently announced that it would move forward with a modified-release formulation of its candidate danuglipron, and in December 2023, San Francisco–based Structure Therapeutics announced positive results from a Phase IIa trial of its weight-loss pill GSBR-1290. Note: Not all companies with oral medicines in Phase I and II trials are included. Taylor Tieden for BioSpace Widely hailed as “the next big thing” in the obesity space, several companies—including Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer—are developing oral GLP-1 candidates. How long before oral GLP-1s take majority share of the market? Source: BioSpace LinkedIn poll , August 2024 Taylor Tieden for BioSpace This deep dive was originally published as a special edition of ClinicaSpace. Subscribe here .