Pep2Tango Therapeutics, Inc.

Versant Ventures has made its fourth investment in an obesity startup in eight months, co-leading a $65 million Series A round in Helicore Biopharma, a developer of an antibody drug that blocks a gut hormone tied to hunger and blood sugar levels.Versants investment in Helicore follows the firms involvement in rounds for Antag Therapeutics, Pep2Tango Therapeutics and SixPeaks Bio. Like Antag, Helicore is studying drugs that inhibit that hormone, called GIP.Helicores lead drug, dubbed HCR-188, blocks GIP ligands in digestive cells, setting it apart from drugs like Eli Lillys Zepbound and Amgens MariTide, which take aim at GIP receptors found in cells that signal insulin release.(Zepbound stimulates, rather than blocks, GIP, while both it and MariTide stimulate a second hormone called GLP-1 thats become central to obesity treatment.)Helicore claims that, by blocking GIP secretion, HCR-188 and similar agents in its pipeline may uniquely prevent GIP signaling in the brain, which could lead to increased mealtime satiety and other metabolic activity that can help reduce weight.It bases its claims on studies of people with genetic mutations that result in loss of GIP activity. These individuals tend to be leaner and have reduced levels of certain lipids in their fat-storing cells.Helicores novel approach is backed by robust evidence and could offer cardiometabolic benefits alongside quality weight loss and improved tolerability when combined with GLP-1, Carlo Rizzuto, managing director at Versant and a Helicore board member, said in a statement.Whether to block or stimulate GIP has become a hot debate in obesity research. Some scientists hypothesize that stimulating GIP, as Zepbound does, could desensitize the protein on pancreatic cells that receives the hormone, effective deactivating it the same way an inhibitor might. MariTide blocks GIP, while stimulating GLP-1.HCR-188 has been tested in preclinical models in combination with GLP-1. The company says its pipeline includes GIP antibody conjugates that can also target GLP-1 and other pathways that might help people with obesity lose weight.Orbimed joined Versant in co-leading the round, which also included investment from Longitude Capital and Wellington. The company is led by CEO Gerrit Klaerner, who co-founded a kidney drug company called Illypsa that was bought by Amgen and another one called Relypsa that was acquired by Galenica. '

Dive Brief:A year after negotiating a $1 billion sale to GSK, a group of former Aiolos Bio executives are starting a well-funded new drugmaker promising to deliver better obesity treatments.Verdiva Bio announced its launch Thursday alongside $411 million in Series A financing, the third-largest funding round since the beginning of 2022 among the top venture capital firms tracked by BioPharma Dive. Forbion and General Atlantic led the financing, with participation from RA Capital Management, OrbiMed, Logos Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures and LYFE Capital.Former Aiolos CEO Khurem Farooq will take the top post at Verdiva with a management team that includes Chief Scientific Officer Jane Hughes, Chief Business Officer Tapan Maniar and Chief Technology Officer Ashley Taylor, who all held the same posts at Aiolos. Mark Pruzanski, the former CEO of Versanis Bio and founder of Intercept Pharmaceuticals, was named chairman.Dive Insight:Verdiva joins a long list of obesity drug startups launched over the last year, including Metsera, Antag Therapeutics, SixPeaks Bio, Pep2Tango Therapeutics and Kailera Therapeutics, which emerged from stealth just months ago with a $400 million financing.All of the newcomers are eyeing the booming market for obesity drugs dominated by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. And theyre promising to offer better options in the form of pills or longer-lasting alternatives to the injectable medicines that are now raking in billions of dollars.The startups are not alone. Drugmakers large and small are racing to develop new obesity medicines, and both Novo and Lilly have successors in the works. Biopharma investment in metabolic treatments more than tripled between 2023 and 2024, according to data compiled by HSBCs Innovation Banking division.Verdiva says it has an experimental treatment in the same GLP-1 class as Novos Wegovy and Lillys Zepboundthat can be administered once a week and is ready for Phase 2 testing. Its also developing a once-weekly oral medicine known as an amylin agonist that could be used alone or in combination with a GLP-1 treatment, as well as a long-acting injectable amylin agonist.The new company is part of a growing trend in the industry, looking to China to pluck effective medicines to develop or build a company around. Verdiva licensed its portfolio from Chinas Sciwind Biosciences and has rights to the drugs outside greater China and South Korea.Kailera, Candid Therapeutics and Aiolos also built companies based on medicines acquired from Chinese drugmakers. And in the last year, Merck licensed from China experimental drugs for autoimmune disease, obesity and cancer. '

Versant is out with its third obesity biotech of the year, leading an €80 million Series A for Antag Therapeutics, a Danish company developing a drug that uses a similar approach as Amgen’s closely-watched weight loss candidate. Antag’s backstory is right on brand. The company is based in Copenhagen, near Novo Nordisk, the developer of the megablockbuster GLP-1 known as Ozempic and Wegovy. It was seeded by Novo Holdings in 2017 and co-founded by Jens Juul Holst, one of the “grandfathers” of GLP-1 research. Its chair is Philip Just Larsen, the CEO of another obesity biotech backed by Versant. To no surprise, the Series A came in far higher than Antag originally sought for the round. The biotech set out to raise between €40 million and €50 million, but upsized it over the year, Endpoints News previously reported . Part of that enthusiasm is likely due to the progress that Amgen has made with a similar treatment approach in the burgeoning obesity drug field. Amgen last week shared mid-stage data for MariTide, its obesity candidate. Both companies are looking at GIP antagonism, rather than agonism, and the dueling approaches have led to a spirited scientific discussion among researchers. “The benefit of our approach here is that we can really maximize the engagement on both receptors,” Antag CEO Alexander Sparre-Ulrich said in an interview. “We have the flexibility to really antagonize the GIP receptor, and agonize and fully engage the GLP-1 receptor in a tolerable manner.” The biotech plans to start testing AT-7687, a once-weekly, under-the-skin injectable, in a SAD and MAD study in the first quarter of 2025 in both healthy, lean individuals and obese patients, Sparre-Ulrich said. Antag will then move AT-7687 into a Phase 1b trial assessing it in combination with Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide. The proceeds from the Series A will be used to support a Phase 2a, the CEO added. Amgen’s drug has spurred several large stock swings for the California drugmaker. When the company released Phase 2 data last week showing 20% weight loss in patients after a year on MariTide, dosing questions led the stock to fall. And when Cantor Fitzgerald analysts published a report in the lead-up to the readout that raised questions about bone mineral density loss, that also caused shares to fall. Amgen pushed back, though, saying there’s “no association” between MariTide and bone mineral density changes. Sparre-Ulrich also said he’s “really not worried at all” about bone mineral changes with regard to Antag’s drug, based on toxicology work that the startup has run on its molecule and large genetic studies. Beyond AT-7687, Antag also has a follow-on compound that could be dosed once a month in obesity patients, the CEO said, and the biotech plans to explore combinations with mechanisms other than GLP-1 as the field adapts to newer approaches like amylin. “A few years down the line, there will be generic medicines. There will be next-generations, [like] amylins, and we can seamlessly integrate into all of that,” Versant managing director Alex Mayweg said in an interview. The biotech currently employs less than 15 people and will grow to about 25 to 30 next year, he added. “We’re happy to say that we already have inbound pharma discussions and interest,” Mayweg said. “Looking forward to 2025, we’ll proceed with those interactions.” One of Versant’s other obesity biotechs, SixPeaks Bio, emerged in May with an option for AstraZeneca to buy it . Larsen is CEO of that company in addition to serving as chair of Antag. Versant also has an obesity startup called Pep2Tango Therapeutics , which is developing tetra-receptor agonist peptides. “From a Versant perspective, we’ve been running a strategy internally over the last couple of years actually to look at beyond-Ozempic investments,” Mayweg said. “The current therapies are incredible, but there are key drawbacks to them.” In addition to Versant and Novo Holdings, Antag is backed by SR One, Dawn Biopharma and Pictet.