Roche Holding AG has agreed to buy Carmot Therapeutics Inc, the developer of a new kind of weight-loss treatment that is the hottest commodity in the pharmaceutical industry, in a deal that could eventually push the Swiss drugmaker into competition with European rival Novo Nordisk A/S.
Roche agreed to pay as much as US$3.1 billion for three clinical-stage assets in obesity and diabetes, with an initial payment of US$2.7 billion and additional milestones of up to US$400 million, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Although Carmot’s drugs are still in the early stages of development, the deal could lead to a competitor to the likes of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly & Co’s Zepbound, which are fueling the growth of a weight-loss market estimated to reach US$100 billion by the end of the decade.
Photo: Reuters
Roche is joining a race by global pharmaceutical giants to get into that business, with Pfizer Inc also developing a new weight-loss drug and AstraZeneca PLC signing a licensing deal with Chinese drug developer Eccogene Inc (誠益生物) for a pill to treat obesity.
Among Carmot’s financial backers is Horizons Ventures Ltd (維港投資), the private investment arm of tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), Hong Kong’s richest person, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
Carmot’s lead asset is a treatment for obesity in patients with and without Type-2 diabetes. Injected subcutaneously once per week, it has potential as a standalone and combination therapy to improve weight loss and be expanded to other indications, Roche said.
Upon closing the deal, Roche would obtain all of Berkeley, California-based Carmot’s clinical and preclinical assets. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.
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