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Pfizer has halted a trial of an obesity drug that applied D&D Pharmatech’s (347850) oral peptide platform “Oralink.”
Pfizer said in its earnings announcement on the 4th that it would discontinue the trial of “MET-224o,” an oral obesity drug candidate. MET-224o is a compound that D&D Pharmatech applied Oralink to and licensed out to Metsera. Pfizer took over development directly after acquiring Metsera last November. Following this decision, only “YP05002,” licensed in from China’s Yao Pharma, remains in Pfizer’s oral glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 pipeline
This is interpreted as a strategic decision following the rapid growth of oral obesity drugs launched this year. Novo Nordisk recently announced at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) that its oral obesity drug “Wegovy pill” surpassed 3 million cumulative prescriptions in June this year, just five months after launch. That amounts to roughly one prescription every five seconds. Eli Lilly’s oral obesity drug “Faunda-yo” is estimated to have recorded $71 million (about 101.3 billion won) in revenue in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year alone.
With already-launched oral obesity drugs quickly establishing themselves in the market, Pfizer, as a latecomer, may have turned to developing differentiated oral obesity drugs to secure competitiveness. A D&D Pharmatech official said, “We understand that (Pfizer) is focusing on developing products that can be differentiated from existing approved products,” adding, “In oral peptides as well, it is increasing the proportion of multi-agonist development that can enhance weight-loss effects rather than single GLP-1.” The official continued, “Considering that Pfizer mentioned in a subsequently released interview that it would continue developing peptide-based oral GLP-1 class products, (this trial discontinuation) is merely a shift toward more competitive products and not a problem with D&D Pharmatech’s technology,” stressing, “If it were a discontinuation due to a technology problem, they would not develop follow-up products based on the D&D Pharmatech platform.”
In fact, D&D Pharmatech disclosed in April this year that it had signed a research service contract worth 1.8 billion won with Pfizer for the development of an oral peptide dual-agonist-based obesity drug. It then filed a correction disclosure last month that the contract amount had increased to 2.5 billion won following an additional order from Pfizer
#Pfizer#DDPharmatech#ObesityDrug#GLP1#Oralink#WeightLoss#Biotech
Original reporting by Park Hyo-jung for Seoul Economic Daily
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreignxact original wording
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