Roche spends $2.7B to acquire biotech company with multiple obesity, diabetes drugs in development
Roche, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, has agreed to acquire U.S.-based Carmot Therapeutics for an upfront purchase price of $2.7 billion. The deal could include up to $400 million in additional milestone payments as time goes on.
Roche's primary interest appears to be CT-388, Carmot’s dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist for treating obesity in patients with and without type 2 diabetes. The drug, administered as a weekly subcutaneous injection, has performed well in early studies and is ready to be examined in a phase 2 clinical trial.
Other key Carmot assets under development include CT-996, a daily oral GLP-1 receptor also designed to treat obesity in patients with and without type 2 diabetes, and CT-868, a daily dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist administered as a daily subcutaneous injection that treats type 1 diabetes in overweight/obese patients.
According to Roche, the early data on these medications suggest “a best-in-class potential to achieve and maintain weight loss with differentiated efficacy.” This comes at a time that semaglutide and other weight loss/diabetes medications are rising in popularity all over the world.
“Obesity is a heterogeneous disease, which contributes to many other diseases that together comprise a significant health burden worldwide,” Thomas Schinecker, CEO of the Roche Group, said in a statement announcing the acquisition. “By combining Carmot’s portfolio with programs in our pharmaceuticals pipeline and our diagnostics expertise and portfolio of products across cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, we are aiming to improve the standard of care and positively impact patients’ lives.”
“We are proud of the pipeline that we have built in obesity and diabetes and the strong data we have generated to date,” Heather Turner, CEO of Carmot, said in a separate statement. “With distinct routes of administration and the potential for combinations, we feel Carmot’s pipeline has the potential to meet patients where they are in their metabolic journey and have a significant impact on patients’ lives. We are confident that Roche will enable robust development of our programs and help us achieve our goal of delivering life-changing therapeutics for people living with metabolic and potentially other diseases.”
This transaction is expected to be finalized in early 2024. Once that occurs, Carmot and its employees are expected to join Roche as part of its pharmaceuticals division.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.