Colorado drugmaker Ambrosia Biosciences has landed $100 million to pursue an oral obesity drug it’s hoping can compete with a recently approved version of Wegovy.
Ambrosia is developing a small molecule GLP-1 pill it says can be more convenient to take and combined with other therapies to increase weight loss. Also in the biotechnology company’s portfolio are drugs for other common metabolic disease targets, such as GIP and amylin.
“As the field moves beyond first-generation molecules, we see a meaningful opportunity for differentiated small molecule modulators that are designed with combinability in mind,” Nick Traggis, Ambrosia’s CEO, said in a Tuesday statement.
Ambrosia’s Series B round was co-led by Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities, Redmile and Deep Track Capital and included five other venture investors. The last venture funding it raised was a $25 million Series A round in 2024. Ambrosia was formed by a group of former Array BioPharma scientists who were laid off after Pfizer acquired the cancer drugmaker.
Approved obesity treatments largely consist of weekly injections that can help patients lose considerable weight. But the December approval of Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy kicked off a new phase of competition in the obesity drug market. A regulatory decision is expected on Eli Lilly’s orforglipron, a similar oral GLP-1 drug, this month.
Though clinical studies have shown pills deliver, on average, less weight loss than their injectable counterparts, they hold a key advantage in being more convenient to take, which companies are betting will increase use. Sales of both injectable and oral GLP-1s are expected to top more than $100 billion annually by 2030, according to Wall Street analysts.
Ambrosia faces stiff competition from other companies trying to develop an obesity pill. Structure Therapeutics recently presented data for its treatment aleniglipron, which, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh, looked like “another potential oral option to the market that will be competing for share in the future” with Novo and Lilly.
Some of those competitors have also turned to Chinese pharmaceutical companies to license oral obesity drugs. Kailera Therapeutics, which filed plans for an initial public offering last month, already has data from mid-stage testing with its partner Hengrui Pharmaceuticals for an oral version of its lead drug ribupatide. Corxel Therapeutics earlier this year raised $287 million to back its “differentiated” GLP-1 pill licensed from Vincentage. And Verdiva Bio, which launched in 2025 with more than $400 million, recently finished enrolling patients in a Phase 2b trial of its oral peptide VRB-101.
