LONDON — The booming obesity market is attracting another player, as pharma giant Roche said Monday it was acquiring Carmot Therapeutics and the company’s line of weight loss drug candidates for $2.7 billion upfront.
The deal for Carmot, which is based in Berkeley, Calif., includes additional milestone payments of up to $400 million. Carmot is privately held, though it had filed paperwork last month for an initial public offering.
As part of the deal, Roche is gaining three experimental obesity medicines from Carmot, which are in Phase 1 or Phase 2 testing, as well as preclinical programs. While two are injectable treatments, one is being developed as an oral drug. They all target GLP-1 hormone receptors, while two are also designed to work via receptors for another hormone called GIP.
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