Nine-month-old obesity player Metsera files an IPO
Whit Bernard. Metsera's co-founder, chief executive, and president
Metsera is leaving no fundraising stone unturned as it races to grab a slice of the fast-growing market for obesity drugs.
Just nine months after emerging from stealth with a $290 million Series A and two months after adding another $215 million to the pot in a Series B, the New York-based company has filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to list on the Nasdaq under the 'MTSR' symbol.
The filing – given a $100 million placeholder value by Renaissance Capital, but which could raise considerably more – would help the company accelerate the clinical development of its pipeline of obesity candidates as it chases down market leaders Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly alongside an ever-lengthening list of other would-be rivals in the category that includes other big-name pharma companies, as well as biotech start-ups.
Last September, another obesity-focused biotech, BioAge, completed an upsized IPO that raised $198 million, after the number of shares on offer was hiked by 40%.
Metsera's lead asset is MET-097i, billed as an ultra-long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist with a profile that could challenge Novo Nordisk's Wegovy (semaglutide) and Eli Lilly's Zepbound (tirzepatide), currently the two biggest-selling obesity drugs.
In a phase 1/2 trial reported last week, MET-097i achieved up to 11.3% mean placebo-adjusted weight loss at 12 weeks and exhibited a 380-hour (nearly 16-day) half-life and good tolerability. Metsera said the drug's profile is at least as good as its rivals and could allow the drug to be dosed as a once-monthly subcutaneous injection. Wegovy and Zepbound both have to be dosed once a week.
According to its IPO prospectus, Metsera has already started a phase 2b trial of weekly dosing with MET-097i in patients with obesity or who are overweight without type 2 diabetes (T2D), with results due in the middle of this year. A second phase 2b trial of weekly dosing is planned in overweight and obese patients with T2D, as well as a third that will look at monthly dosing.
Following after is MET-233i, an ultra-long-acting amylin analogue that will be developed as a monotherapy and in combination with GLP-1-acting drugs, including MET-097i, which is in phase 1. And rounding out Metsera's clinical-stage trio is an oral GLP-1 candidate, MET-224o, that is due to start clinical testing later this year.
"We believe our product candidates have the potential to reduce the barriers to adoption as a chronic therapy while raising the ceiling of effectiveness, and improving manufacturing scalability," writes Metsera in its prospectus.
It further notes that third-party market research reports have estimated that GLP-1 receptor agonists represented approximately $36 billion in global sales in 2023 and could reach $170 billion by 2030.
