Looking to gain an edge as its broader obesity ambitions take shape, Pfizer has picked up the rights to a recently approved GLP-1 in China, unlocking an immediate commercial opportunity in type 2 diabetes with the potential for a weight loss nod not far behind.
Pfizer will pay Hangzhou-based Sciwind Biosciences up to $495 million to get its hands on exclusive commercialization rights to the company’s injectable GLP-1 ecnoglutide in Mainland China, Sciwind said in a Feb. 24 press release. The China biopharma noted that the total deal value includes an upfront payment and biobucks tied to regulatory and sales milestones, although it did not provide a detailed breakdown.
Under the terms of the deal, Sciwind will keep hold of ecnoglutide’s marketing authorization and continue to lead R&D, registration, manufacturing and supply of the drug.
As a next-generation cAMP-biased GLP-1 receptor agonist, Sciwind designed ecnoglutide to offer more precise treatment for diabetes patients and those seeking long-term therapy for weight management, according to Tuesday’s release. Sciwind cited the GLP-1 injection’s reported 15.1% placebo-adjusted weight loss in Chinese clinical trial patients, adding that the medication also helped 92.8% of those patients achieve “clinically meaningful weight loss” and further helped 80% hit HbA1c blood sugar levels under 7%.
Sciwind’s GLP-1 injection was approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration for diabetes in January and is currently under review by the regulator in adult chronic weight management, the company said.
Both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are already marketing their respective obesity and diabetes stalwarts, semaglutide and tirzepatide, in China, and the country has produced a recent homegrown offering as well in Lilly and Innovent’s mazdutide, a dual GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist that Chinese regulators approved for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or who are overweight last June.
"This collaboration represents another solid step to advance Pfizer's global strategy in the metabolic field and reflects our ambition to become a leader in the next generation of chronic weight management therapies,” Alexandre de Germay, Pfizer’s international commercial chief, said in a statement.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in this high-impact, high-growth therapeutic area, with the goal of leading the delivery of these important innovations to patients worldwide and addressing unmet patient needs,” he added.
Pfizer’s Sciwind tie-up follows two other high-profile deals in the metabolic medicine space—and comes after Pfizer’s obesity prospects appeared to take a bleak turn last summer.
In early August, the New York drugmaker scrapped what was—at the time—the third and final GLP-1 agonist in its obesity pipeline, with the company then crediting the decision to lackluster data and tough R&D competition in the field.
Rather than looking inward for its next obesity gambit, Pfizer instead shifted focus to obesity biotech Metsera, which it ultimately acquired for roughly $10 billion in mid-November, following a brief but contentious bidding war with GLP-1 heavyweight Novo Nordisk.
The crown jewel of the Metsera deal is the biotech’s ultra-long-acting GLP-1 injectable MET-097i—now coded PF-08653944. Earlier this month, Pfizer reported that obesity patients in a phase 2b trial who switched to monthly dosing of the asset kept losing weight, providing early validation of the asset.
In data on the candidate’s weekly regimen posted in September, Metsera tied the GLP-1 to weight loss of up to 14.1% at 28 weeks of treatment, with those results generally stacking up well against competitors in the GLP-1 development scene, Guggenheim Securities analysts said last year.
More recently, Pfizer splashed out $150 million upfront—and put up hundreds of millions more in potential milestones—to acquire worldwide rights to a GLP-1 agonist dubbed YP05002 from Yao Pharma, a subsidiary of Shanghai-based Fosun Pharmaceuticals.
Pfizer has said it plans to evaluate the Yao Pharma asset in combination with its GIPR antagonist PF-07976016, plus other small molecules from its pipeline, and Yao is also pushing ahead with a phase 1 weight management study of the asset in Australia.