Today, a brief rundown of news from Pfizer and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, as well as updates from Helus Pharma and Daiichi Sankyo that you may have missed.
Pfizer has won its first obesity drug approval, announcing Friday that Chinese regulators have cleared a medicine the company recently acquired partial rights to in a licensing deal. According to Pfizer, China’s health authorities greenlit Severwin, formerly ecnoglutide, for weight management in adults. Pfizer last month acquired from Sciwind Biosciences exclusive commercialization rights to the drug in China, where it had already been OK’d for Type 2 diabetes. That deal was one of a series of obesity-related investments for Pfizer, which paid $10 billion for Metsera last year and reached a potentially $2 billion licensing deal with YaoPharma. — Ben Fidler
Tenaya Therapeutics and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals will work together to unearth up to 15 new genetic targets that could be used to develop treatments for heart disease. Under the deal announced Thursday, Tenaya will be responsible for validating the targets and, in return, receive up to $10 million upfront and possibly $1.13 billion more should the research eventually yield approved medicines. Alnylam, meanwhile, will handle development and commercialization costs. In a note to clients Thursday, William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh wrote that the upfront payouts due to Tenaya could be cut by up to $4 million if the targets it finds don’t meet certain “technical standards” and aren’t advanced. — Delilah Alvarado
Helus Pharma on Thursday reported results from a mid-stage “signal detection” study in people with generalized anxiety disorder. Helus said a regimen involving its therapy HLP004 on top of standard care was associated with a “clinically meaningful” 10-point improvement on a scale evaluating anxiety symptoms after six weeks. There were no drug-related serious adverse events either, and the company claimed the results were encouraging enough to support continued development. Still, company shares lost more than a quarter of their value, falling to their lowest trading levels in almost a year. — Ben Fidler
Daiichi Sankyo reached a deal for rights to a “digital therapeutic” GAIA is developing for people with high cholesterol. The partnership announced Thursday involves what’s called lipodia, an app that uses AI-powered cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients adopt positive lifestyle changes and health habits. The alliance initially involves only Germany but could expand to involve “all major markets” in Europe. Lipodia is currently in late-stage clinical testing. — Ben Fidler
