Roche enters obesity drug market with $2.7 billion Carmot deal
By Ludwig Burger and Noele Illien
ZURICH (Reuters) -Roche agreed to take over obesity drug developer Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion, joining a list global contestants seeking to challenge the dominant makers of weight-loss drugs Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY).
On top of the upfront purchase price of $2.7 billion, Carmot's equity holders will receive payments of up to $400 million if certain milestones are achieved, the Swiss drugmaker said in a statement on Monday.
The takeover target's most promising drug candidate CT-388 belongs to a class known as a dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist, the same as Lilly's Mounjaro, or Zepbound.
After encouraging Phase I trial results, the drug is ready to be tested on humans in the second of three trial stages, Roche added.
Among recent deals to acquire obesity drug development projects, AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) last month agreed to pay up to $2 billion for the rights to an experimental pill from China's Eccogene.
New Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker has set a high deal pace since taking the helm in March to restore Roche's drug development pipeline, which hit major late-stage trial setbacks in Alzheimer's and cancer immunotherapy last year.
Roche in October agreed to pay an initial $7.1 billion to Roivant and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) for rights to a new inflammatory bowel disease drug, eyeing new therapeutic fields to offset falling oncology sales.
Carmot's current portfolio includes clinical stage gut-hormone drugs, in pill and injection form, aimed at treating obesity in patients with and without diabetes, as well as a number of preclinical programmes, Roche said.
Carmot's employees will join Roche's pharmaceuticals division when the transaction officially closes,
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