Obesity: Roche buys company that develops medicine – 12/04/2023 – Market

Roche announced this Monday (4) that it agreed to pay US$3.1 billion to buy Carmot, which is developing medicines against obesity.

With this, Roche enters the market to compete with companies such as Novo Nordisk, owner of Ozempic and Wegovy, and Eli Lily, which produces Mounjaro and Zepbound. Ozempic is used to treat diabetes, but it has also been adopted to combat obesity, despite there being no scientific proof.

According to the announcement, Roche will pay US$2.7 billion to Carmot shareholders when the deal is completed in the first quarter of 2024, in addition to a further US$400 million depending on targets achieved.

The pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, will acquire exclusive rights to medicines that are still being tested by Carmot for obesity in patients with and without diabetes.

Currently available treatments are administered only through injections, while Carmot relies on the use of injections and pills. Researchers hope the latter option will be cheaper to produce and distribute, as well as being less likely to cause side effects.

Scientists believe achieving the same efficacy as injectable treatments will be difficult — Pfizer suffered a setback in trials of its pill last week — but Roche said it believes Carmot’s research has “the greatest potential to achieve and maintain loss of weight with differentiated effectiveness”, in addition to the ability to be combined with other medicines that are being developed.

As part of the merger agreement, Roche will also acquire Carmot’s “Chemotype Evolution” drug discovery platform used to identify obesity and diabetes drug candidates.

Other big companies in the sector include Novo Nordisk, whose shares have risen rapidly in recent months, Eli Lilly, which recently had a treatment approved in the US, and AstraZeneca and Pfizer, both pursuing oral treatments for obesity.