Flagship's Metaphore lands $600M Novo deal to 'mimic' better obesity drugs

2024-05-09

Novo Nordisk is doubling down on its quest for novel obesity medicines, inking a potentially lucrative deal with Flagship Pioneering start-up Metaphore Biotechnologies to develop up to two multitarget therapeutics using the biotech's MIMIC platform.

The Danish drugmaker could shell out up to $600 million in upfront and milestone payments, plus royalties, spurring hopes that Metaphore's machine learning-powered molecular mimicry approach could unlock a new class of longer-acting, more potent medicines aimed at the GLP-1 receptor and related obesity pathways.

'Molecular mimics'

"Metaphore's platform aims to mimic the interactions between molecules with impressive accuracy by capturing their natural dynamics at the point of interface, potentially leading to therapeutics that require infrequent dosing," noted Uli Stilz, head of Novo Nordisk's Bio Innovation Hub. The approach systematically isolates pharmacophores – the essential features where a drug binds its target – and designs "molecular mimics" that are then enhanced with fine-tuned therapeutic properties like function, selectivity, and multi-targeting.

The collaboration stems from Novo Nordisk's strategic partnership with Flagship Pioneering from 2022. It also marks the third tie-up under the alliance following deals with Cellarity and Omega Therapeutics announced earlier the year to develop new treatments for obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

As part of the latest deal, the partners will work toward advancing the programmes through to preclinical development, after which Novo Nordisk could decide to move them into clinical testing.

Future financing round

In addition to the up to $600 million in upfront, development and commercial milestones, and potential royalties to be split with Pioneering Medicines, Flagship's in-house drug development unit, Novo Nordisk will also cover research costs and participate in a future financing round for Metaphore. The biotech, which launched in 2023 with $50 million from Flagship, told FirstWord it had no additional details about the financing round "to share at this time."

With over 800 million adults globally living with obesity, the pharmaceutical industry has been actively seeking to develop new treatments that could challenge Novo Nordisk's pole position with Wegovy (semaglutide). For its part, the Danish drugmaker continues to innovate in the space as well, with an obesity pipeline that includes a once daily oral version of Wegovy, as well as CagriSema, a fixed-dose, once-weekly injection combining semaglutide with amylin analogue cagrilintide. Both those programmes are currently in Phase III.