Lilly bets up to $1.9B on Versanis’ PhIIb weight loss drug alone and in combo with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy

Eli Lil­ly will pay up to $1.925 bil­lion in cash for weight loss drug­mak­er Ver­sa­nis, mark­ing the Big Phar­ma’s fourth ac­qui­si­tion this sum­mer af­ter deals for DICE Ther­a­peu­tics, Sig­ilon and Emer­gence Ther­a­peu­tics.

The ac­qui­si­tion could pay out in the near fu­ture, as Ver­sa­nis last month guid­ed to a Phase IIb read­out for its mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body in the mid­dle of 2024. Tri­al in­ves­ti­ga­tors are test­ing whether the as­set, dubbed bima­grum­ab, alone and in com­bi­na­tion with No­vo Nordisk’s semaglu­tide, can “sub­stan­tial­ly pre­vent the loss of mus­cle mass ob­served with semaglu­tide and oth­er in­cretin ther­a­pies” while al­so re­duc­ing fat.

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