Exterior view of the entrance to Merck headquarters on February 5, 2024 in Rahway, New Jersey.
Spencer Platt | fake images
merck On Wednesday it said it had acquired the rights to an experimental weight-loss pill from Chinese drugmaker Hansoh Pharma, in a deal valued at up to $2 billion.
The oral drug has not yet entered human trials, and Merck did not specify which diseases it plans to test the drug on first. Still, it increases the pharmaceutical company's chances of gaining a slice of the burgeoning obesity drug market, which some analysts expect to be worth more than $100 billion a year by the early 2030s.
Several other drug manufacturers, including Pfizer and Rocheare racing to develop more convenient obesity pills that can compete with Novo Nordisk's successful injections and Eli Lilly.
Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will obtain the exclusive global license to develop, manufacture and commercialize Hansoh Pharma's HS-10535, an experimental oral drug that targets an intestinal hormone called GLP-1. Nordisk Wegovy, the popular weight loss drug, and Ozempic, the diabetes treatment, also target GLP-1 to reduce appetite and regulate blood sugar.
Merck will pay Hansoh $112 million up front for the rights to the drug, with the potential for an additional $1.9 billion in milestone payments and royalties on sales, according to a news release.
Merck said its fourth-quarter results will include a pretax charge of $112 million, or 4 cents per share.
In the statement, Dean Li, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said the oral drug has “potential to provide additional cardiometabolic benefits beyond weight reduction.”
Merck CEO Rob Davis said early last year that the company was looking for GLP-1 treatments with benefits beyond weight loss.
“I think everyone recognizes that it's difficult to get reimbursed for weight management. But if you can show the cardiovascular outcome, if you can show the diabetes outcome, which you're starting to see data for, if you can can see the benefits of fatty liver disease… That's an area where we think there are opportunities,” he said at a conference at the time.
This is the latest transaction involving experimental GLP-1 drugs from China. AstraZeneca last year it licensed the experimental oral drug from the Chinese company Eccogene, which has since been in an intermediate stage of development.
