Bimagrumab

Novartis will pay $100 million in upfront and pre-IND milestone payments to tap into a macrocyclic peptide platform from Unnatural Products, a deal that could lead to new cardiovascular disease medicines. The move allows the Swiss pharma giant to delve into a niche but growing area of drug R&D that seeks to combine the precision and potency of biologics with the easier-to-use delivery of oral medicines. The progress of macrocyclic chemistry is “opening entirely new avenues in drug discovery,” said Muneto Mogi, head of global discovery chemistry at Novartis Biomedical Research. Those advances enable target engagement “at a dose and with a pharmacological versatility not possible with many other approaches,” he added in a Wednesday press release . Multiple startups are trying to pave those new avenues. That includes Danish contender Orbis Medicines , Boehringer Ingelheim- paired Circle Pharma, and Vilya , which was co-founded by Nobel Prize winner David Baker. Novartis’ bet could pay off big time for Unnatural Products. The startup could get up to $1.7 billion in biobucks spread across development, regulatory and commercial milestones. Novartis will be in the driver’s seat for everything beginning at the IND-enabling stage. Novartis joins companies like BridgeBio and Merck in tapping into Unnatural Products’ macrocyclic territory. Those partnerships have kept the biotech’s engine humming; it has not disclosed a funding round since its $32 million Series A in 2023. Unnatural Products CEO Cameron Pye said in an email to Endpoints News on Wednesday that the original Merck collaboration has “completed.” The company continues to “stay close” with the Merck Research Laboratories team and “have their continued partnership through their Global Health Innovation Fund,” Pye added. Unnatural Products’ pipeline was initially focused on oncology, but has shifted in recent years. At the time of its argenx deal announcement last year, Pye told Endpoints that Unnatural Products was working on an oral activin type 2 receptor antagonist. That area is drawing attention due to Eli Lilly’s bimagrumab , which seeks to promote fat loss while keeping muscle mass intact. Pye told Endpoints in the same email thread that Unnatural Products’ pipeline contains multiple programs, including a project in the field of obesity and metabolic diseases. He declined to disclose further details, including when the biotech could enter human trials. Pye co-founded Unnatural Products with chief scientific officer Joshua Schwochert in the final year of their PhD at UC Santa Cruz. Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify the nature of the $100 million payment.

iStock, leremy Biohaven has suffered a few setbacks in recent months, including an FDA rejection and a missed $150 million benchmark payment, but CEO Vlad Coric looked for the brighter side at JPM, specifically emphasizing a serendipitous discovery that could get the company in the obesity game. Vlad Coric seems unfazed by the crowd of people milling around Union Square in San Francisco. This is apparently Coric’s default demeanor, as the Biohaven CEO also appears largely unbothered by the myriad setbacks that have hit his company in recent months. That includes a recent mid-stage miss in major depressive disorder, a November 2025 FDA rejection in a rare neurodegenerative disease and a corresponding $150 million capital opportunity lost. Instead, he tells me about the company’s plans to repurpose its spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) drug taldefgrobep alfa, which flunked a Phase III trial in late 2024, as a muscle-sparing drug for use alongside GLP-1s like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy or Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. He specifically points to bimagrumab, for which Lilly paused a clinical trial last September. “A lot of folks who don’t want to take GLP-1s are concerned about the muscle loss and the bone density effects,” Coric told BioSpace on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. “The only thing that I think limited Lilly’s bimagrumab was the side effects. They had very high rates of side effects. We’re not seeing the side effects that Lilly ran into.” Notably, Lilly did not report a reason for pausing the bimagrumab trial in September. Biohaven made a serendipitous discovery following the trial of taldefgrobep alfa for SMA—a neuromuscular disease that causes destruction of motor neurons; participants saw reduced weight and preservation of lean muscle and bone density while on the drug. Biohaven Is recruiting patients living with obesity or who are overweight for a Phase II study, which is set to complete in September 2026. FDA FDA Reversals Send UniQure, Biohaven, Capricor, More Into a ‘Tailspin’ Since July, several biotechs have been forced to pivot as previous agreements with the FDA around evidence required for approval were reversed, a phenomenon that, according to experts, could portend a more restrictive regulator. November 24, 2025 · 7 min read · Heather McKenzie Read More While the pivot is significant and the competition fierce, Coric appears undaunted. In fact, he seems only to see an opportunity. Bimagrumab is an inhibitor that blocks activin type II receptors, preventing its inhibitory action on muscle growth while potentially causing side effects, Coric said, while taldefgrobep alfa uses a different mechanism of action to inhibit a different protein, myostatin, which itself regulates muscle size. “So we think we could deliver bimagrumab-like efficacy without the side effects. That’s a winning pro a monotherapy.” Like You’re Going To Run It Forever The Biohaven brand has had its successes. In 2022 Pfizer bought Biohaven Pharmaceutical for $11.6 billion , largely to acquire its successful migraine treatment program. Coric took a pipeline of experimental products from what remained and spun out a second company, Biohaven Ltd., trading under Biohaven Pharma’s original stock ticker. The new company hasn’t yet been able to reproduce the original’s commercial achievements. When Biohaven’s spinocerebellar ataxia treatment troriluzole was rejected by the FDA in November 2025, the company also missed out on a $150 million payment from investment firm Oberland Capital. But Biohaven is resilient. The company went to Wall Street to raise more funds, seeking a $150 million public offering but ending up with $200 million. Then, on January 7 just ahead of JPM, the investment firm Janus Henderson bought $125 million in shares of Biohaven. “That’s 10% of the company” Coric said. “We’re well capitalized.” Coric’s confidence appears to stem from Biohaven’s diverse pipeline. He pointed repeatedly to BHV-1300, a protein degrader therapy for autoimmune conditions. That drug scored in March 2025 when it showed a deep reduction in IgG proteins after a four-week Phase I trial. For all of this swagger, however, it seems Coric and Biohaven came to the conference with something to prove to the rest of the biopharma world. “I think coming into [JPM26], we wanted to make sure we were well-funded, we could show people our exciting data and focus on the degrader platform as the future.” Despite the rollercoaster trajectory of the second iteration of Biohaven, Coric seems intent to keep the company running as its own entity—for the time being—although he is open to a potential buyout. “I’m a firm believer you should run your company like you’re going to own it forever,” he said, “but if somebody comes in and gives you a good offer, you’ll always consider that, as we did for [Pfizer].” .responsive-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; border: 1px solid #ededed; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-left { flex: 1; max-width: 45%; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-right { flex: 2; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } @media (max-width: 768px) { .column-left, .column-right { max-width: 100%; flex: 100%; padding: 10px 0; } } Subscribe to BioPharm Executive! 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