Verdiva Bio raises $411m for obesity pipeline
Khurem Farooq has been named Verdiva Bio chief executive
Investor interest in companies with obesity candidates in their pipeline clearly remains high, given that a brand new Anglo-US start-up – Verdiva Bio – has just decloaked with a whopping $411 million in first-round financing.
The London and San Francisco-based company has emerged with a portfolio of oral and injectable treatments for obesity, cardiometabolic disorders, and related complications, headed by once-weekly oral GLP-1 and oral amylin therapies for weight loss and maintenance.
In the new biotech's sights are the current duopoly of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, whose GLP-1 agonist-based therapies for obesity and diabetes are already raking in billions of dollars in sales, while dozens of other companies are hoping to capture a slice of a market that, according to IQVIA predictions, could reach a value of up to $131 billion by 2028.
Khurem Farooq, formerly chief executive of Aiolos Bio and Gyroscope Therapeutics prior to their respective acquisitions by GSK and Novartis, has been named as the CEO of Verdiva. He said its lead asset VRB-101, an oral GLP-1 peptide, "has the potential to be a first-in-class, once-weekly oral treatment for obesity and weight loss maintenance that could dramatically improve patient access and affordability."
VRB-101 – which has been licensed from Chinese biotech Sciwind – has already cleared a phase 1 trial that supported the viability of once-weekly dosing with the drug, as well as its ability to achieve weight loss, according to Verdiva.
The company's pipeline also includes two other candidates licensed from Sciwind, namely VRB-103, a once-weekly oral amylin agonist, and VRB-102, a long-acting, subcutaneous amylin agonist. Those candidates are in preclinical development and Verdiva plans to test them as monotherapies and in combination with oral and injectable GLP-1 drugs.
"People living with obesity and its complications deserve better options at each stage of their treatment journey," said Farooq, adding that those include "oral therapies with less frequent dosing regimens, the potential for improved efficacy and tolerability, and innovative combination therapies in pursuit of healthier weight loss and, equally importantly, maintenance of metabolically healthy weight."
Verdiva's senior management also includes chief scientific officer Jane Hughes, who worked with Farooq at Aioilos and Gyroscope and previously worked at GSK and Medimmune, and chief medical officer Mohamed Eid who joins Verdiva from Boehringer Ingelheim.
The Series A was co-led by Forbion and General Atlantic, with participation from RA Capital Management, OrbiMed, Logos Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, and LYFE Capital.
