Obesity deals come into focus after Roche shells out $2.7B for Carmot

Roche’s $2.7 bil­lion bolt-on deal for Car­mot Ther­a­peu­tics is the lat­est ex­am­ple of how phar­ma com­pa­nies are rac­ing to get back in­to obe­si­ty, drug de­vel­op­ment’s most prized field, an­a­lysts told End­points News.

The Mon­day morn­ing deal came on the heels of Pfiz­er’s dis­clo­sure last Fri­day that it wouldn’t move its obe­si­ty as­set, danuglipron, in­to Phase III test­ing.

“The news about Pfiz­er just re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of a once-dai­ly oral and mak­ing sure that you can achieve the ef­fi­ca­cy that you want with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly sac­ri­fic­ing the [ad­verse event] pro­file,” Car­mot CEO Heather Turn­er told End­points News. “Ul­ti­mate­ly, that’s what was the chal­lenge with danuglipron.”

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