Novo Nordisk’s attempt to create a successor to its weight loss blockbuster Wegovy may have taken a hit with recent underwhelming data for CagriSema, but the Danish pharma has given itself another option thanks to a $2 billion deal with China’s United Laboratories.
The candidate at the center of the deal, dubbed UBT251, is a triple agonist for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon. Wegovy already inhibits GLP-1, while Eli Lilly’s competitor Zepbound is an agonist of both GIP and GLP-1.
UBT251 goes a step further by also inhibiting the glucagon receptor. Eli Lilly has already got a GIP, GLP-1 and glucagon agonist into late-stage development in the form of retatrutide, which was tied to a 16% weight loss at 24 weeks in a phase 2 study in 2023.
Novo Nordisk has decided that it wants its own triple agonist, and is willing to hand over $200 million upfront to United Laboratories’ subsidiary United Biotechnology. In return for the global rights, excluding Greater China, Novo Nordisk is also liable to pay up to $1.8 billion in milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties.
Novo Nordisk already has some data to back up its investment. A phase 1b trial of UBT251 by United Biotechnology, conducted among 36 patients with obesity or overweight, showed that the highest subcutaneous dose of 6 mg resulted in an average weight loss of 15.1% from baseline.
While trial-to-trial comparisons are difficult, Wegovy achieved a 14.9% average weight reduction in STEP-1, a 68-week clinical trial of nondiabetic patients with obesity or who are overweight and have at least one weight-related comorbidity. The early data from UBT251 suggests it may be as similarly fast-acting as another of Novo Nordisk’s obesity hopefuls, the oral GLP-1 and amylin receptor amycretin, which showed 13.1% weight loss after 12 weeks in a phase 1 trial a year ago.
“The addition of a candidate targeting glucagon, as well as GLP-1 and GIP, will add important optionality to our clinical pipeline, as we look to develop a broad portfolio of differentiated treatment options that cater to the diverse needs of people living with these highly prevalent diseases,” Martin Holst Lange, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for development at Novo Nordisk, said in the March 24 release.
“We look forward to building on United Biotechnology’s scientific work and further exploring the potential best-in-class properties of UBT251 across cardiometabolic disease indications,” he added.
United Biotechnology has already launched a phase 2 trial for UBT251 in China, which may give a better sense of whether Novo Nordisk’s latest obesity bet will pay off.
Novo Nordisk recently unveiled a restructuring of its early-stage R&D organization, although Chief Scientific Officer Marcus Schindler, Ph.D., insisted to Fierce at the time that this had not been prompted by the underwhelming weight loss data from the company's next-gen obesity drug CagriSema.
In November, Marcus Schindler spoke to Fierce about the future of GLP-1s and Novo Nordisk's wider R&D strategy. Listen to the full podcast below: