Flagship taps startup to hunt for obesity drugs that might interest Pfizer
12 Jun 2024
Dive Brief:
Flagship Pioneering will partner with biotechnology startup ProFound Therapeutics to search for promising drug candidates for obesity that Pfizer, under a deal struck with Flagship last year, may later choose to advance.
The collaboration between Flagship and ProFound, which the venture firm founded in 2022, is the first drug-hunting effort started through the alliance Flagship and Pfizer formed in July. At the time, both Flagship and Pfizer said they would invest $50 million to develop 10 drug candidates that Pfizer would have an option to later license or acquire.
The initiative comes at an interesting time for Pfizer, which has been forced to scrap one experimental weight loss drug and revise plans for another after disappointing data readouts.
Dive Insight:
Like many other companies, Pfizer aims to follow Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly into a market for obesity drugs that’s quickly become among the most lucrative in the industry.
But its initial efforts have fallen short. One GLP-1 drug candidate, called lotiglipron, was associated with possible signs of liver toxicity in testing. Another, danuglipron, caused high rates of gastrointestinal side effects, leading Pfizer to discontinue a twice-daily dosing regimen in favor of once-daily. Data on that dosage is expected later this year and could be important for the drug’s future.
The partnership with Flagship could help Pfizer source other potential drugs. The alliance set up by the two firms is broad, designed to advance 10 candidates that match Pfizer’s development priorities. Flagship’s efforts under the deal are routed through its “Pioneering Medicines Initiative,” which will look across Flagship’s portfolio of companies to find promising ideas they may not be able to advance on their own.
Flagship has struck similar deals with Novo and with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
ProFound is built around what it calls its ProFoundry platform. The platform is designed to mine the “translatome” to identify novel proteins that might make for good drugs. The startup will use its platform to search for protein-based obesity therapies.
”This agreement — the first under our broader strategic partnership with Flagship — is designed to push the boundaries of science to potentially unlock new protein therapeutics for obesity leveraging ProFound's proprietary discovery platform,” said Charlotte Allerton, Pfizer’s head of discovery and early development, in a Wednesday statement.
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