U.S. pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, which holds diabetes and obesity treatments Maunzaro and Zepbound, has opened its wallet again to strengthen its competitiveness in the obesity treatment market. This time, it acquired technology to develop a more long-lasting obesity treatment.
Eli Lilly announced on the 3rd (local time) that it has signed a technology transaction agreement with Swedish pharmaceutical company Camurus worth up to $870 million (approximately 1.19 trillion won).
The company stated that it plans to co-develop and commercialize an incretin (insulin secretion-regulating hormone) treatment using Camurus' long-acting drug delivery technology, FluidCrystal.
Eli Lilly has opted for Camurus' drug delivery technology to develop long-acting treatments for its obesity drug candidate substances.
Eli Lilly's obesity drug Zepbound (Korean name Maunzaro) is a dual-action agent that targets glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1, which slows down digestion to create a feeling of fullness, and gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP), which promotes insulin secretion and has anti-inflammatory effects.
Currently, all GLP-1 class obesity treatments available on the market, including Zepbound, are injectables, requiring patients to self-inject once a week. Such treatments, which need to be taken long-term, often see patients discontinue use due to this inconvenience.
Eli Lilly plans to extend the efficacy duration of its obesity drugs, reducing the frequency of injections from once a week to once every 1 to 3 months. As the duration increases, the chance of patients missing doses decreases, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of obesity treatment. To achieve this, technology that can slowly release the medication over an extended period or expand the molecular structure to prolong the efficacy duration is needed.
The FluidCrystal technology from Camurus that Eli Lilly has chosen can sustain the efficacy of injectables for up to several months. When the drug is injected into the body, the solution solidifies like jelly and turns into a gel. Over time, the gel structure gradually breaks down, slowly releasing the medication and extending its efficacy period.
Meanwhile, the news of this contract has impacted the domestic bio corporation Peptron, leading its stock to hit the lower limit. Peptron signed a technology evaluation agreement last October for joint research with Eli Lilly to develop a long-acting obesity treatment over 14 months. The investment market has expressed concerns that Peptron's technology may overlap with Camurus', and this will affect Peptron's main contract, currently undergoing technical evaluation.
Peptron maintains that this contract is unrelated to its own. The company released a statement on its website that said, "The technical evaluation for the development of a long-acting obesity treatment with Lilly is ongoing and progressing smoothly, even at this moment," and added, "Lilly's new contract with other companies is different from our platform, the smart depo's spray-drying method."