Less than two weeks after Pfizer struck a deal with a Chinese drugmaker to gain commercial rights to a GLP-1 drug, the country’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has approved the treatment for patients with obesity.
With the endorsement of injected Xianweiying, Pfizer has broken into the weight-loss market and done so in the world’s largest country, which has a growing obesity problem.
Last month, Pfizer signed on with Hangzhou-based Sciwind Biosciences in a deal worth up to $495 million between upfront and potential milestone payments. In that deal, Pfizer gained marketing rights in China to the GLP-1 compound ecnoglutide, which was also approved by the NMPA five weeks ago as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes and is dubbed Xianyida in that indication.
Under the terms of the deal, Sciwind will continue to lead the R&D of ecnoglutide and the manufacturing and supply of the treatment.
Even though it is a GLP-1 drug, Xianweiying offers a “precise new pathway” for weight loss, Sciwind said in a March 6 release, touting its cAMP-based mechanism of action. The company said ecnoglutide sustains weight loss with “no obvious plateau phase.”
In a 48-week trial, patients on the highest dose of ecnoglutide achieved average weight loss of 15.4% from baseline, with nearly 93% of patients reaching clinically meaningful weight reductions of at least 5%.
Pfizer joins Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in the weight loss market in China. In addition to marketing its tirzepatide products in the country, Lilly partners with Suzhou-based Innovent to commercialize mazdutide, a dual GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist that Chinese regulators approved for weight loss in June of last year. The companies expanded their collaboration last month in a deal involving medicines for cancer and immune disorders.
Pfizer has had difficulty breaking into the obesity market, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying. In early August, it scrapped what was then the third and final GLP-1 in its obesity pipeline after it posted lackluster data.
Pfizer then looked outward, acquiring Metsera for up to $10 billion in November after prevailing in a contentious bidding war with Novo. Metsera’s top candidate, PF-08653944, has been tied to weight loss of at least 14% at 28 weeks of treatment, with those results stacking up well against other GLP-1 competitors, Gugenheim Securities analysts said at the time.
Pfizer also has paid $150 million upfront to acquire worldwide rights to a GLP-1 agonist, YP05002, from China’s Yao Pharma, a subsidiary of Shanghai-based Fosun Pharmaceuticals.