Dive Brief:

潜水简介：

Metsera, a richly funded biotechnology startup, launched Thursday with a portfolio of weight loss drugs the company claims could eventually compete with market-leading medicines from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

梅瑟拉是一家资金雄厚的生物技术初创公司，周四推出了一系列减肥药物，该公司声称，这些药物最终可能与诺和诺德和礼来的市场领先药物竞争。

In its first official announcement, the biotech, whose existence was revealed by Endpoints News earlier this month, said it has two therapies in clinical testing already. Another “handful” could join in the next year, CEO Clive Meanwell said in an interview.

本月早些时候，Endpoints News披露了这家生物技术公司的存在，该公司在其首次正式宣布中表示，它已经有两种疗法用于临床试验。首席执行官克莱夫·米恩威尔（CliveMeanwell）在接受采访时表示，明年可能会有另一批“少数人”加入。

The biotech has raised $290 million in funding, led by co-founding investment firms Arch Venture Partners and Population Health Partners. It’s already used some of that cash to build a drug portfolio of oral and injectable drugs as well as prospects that simultaneously target multiple gut hormones.

该生物技术公司已经筹集了2.9亿美元的资金，由联合投资公司Arch Venture Partners和人口健康合作伙伴牵头。它已经用其中的一部分资金建立了口服和注射药物的药物组合，以及同时针对多种肠道激素的前景。

Dive Insight:

潜水洞察：

Like many others in the industry, Meanwell was struck by the success of Lilly’s Mounjaro and Novo’s Wegovy, which proved so effective in testing that their makers have struggled to keep up with demand.

与业内许多其他公司一样，米恩威尔对礼来公司的Mounjaro和Novo公司的Wegovy的成功感到震惊，这两款产品在测试中证明是如此有效，以至于制造商一直在努力满足需求。

Analysts now project a market worth more than $100 billion, a prize that’s sparked a gold rush among large and small companies to follow in Lilly’s and Novo’s footsteps.

分析师们现在预测一个价值超过1000亿美元的市场，这个奖项在大小公司中引发了一股淘金热，纷纷效仿礼来和诺和诺华的脚步。

Meanwell, an industry veteran who sold his last company to Novartis for nearly $10 billion, also acknowledged the high bar set by Mounjaro and Wegovy. Developing equivalently effective drugs is the “table stakes” for any aspiring competitors, he said.

Meanwell是一位行业资深人士，曾以近100亿美元将上一家公司出售给诺华，他也承认Mounjaro和Wegovy设定的高标准。他说，开发同等有效的药物是任何有抱负的竞争对手的“赌注”。

With the help of Arch and the venture firm, Population Health, that he chairs, Meanwell put together an investor syndicate, raised an unusually large bankroll, and used it to scour the globe for weight loss therapies. The goal was to create a startup that could “go after the second, third, or even fourth generation” of obesity medicines — the ones that might eventually supplant Mounjaro and Wegovy, he said..

在Arch和他主持的风险投资公司Population Health的帮助下，Meanwell成立了一个投资财团，筹集了异常庞大的资金，并用它在全球寻找减肥疗法。他说，目标是创建一家可以“追赶第二代、第三代甚至第四代”肥胖药物的初创公司，这些药物可能最终取代Mounjaro和Wegovy。。

“The first generation of products are a godsend,” said Arch managing director Kristina Burow. But people “are going to need different drugs” to cut weight without also losing muscle mass or dealing with side effects, she added. “There is room for more than two players.”

Arch董事总经理克里斯蒂娜·伯罗（KristinaBurow）表示：“第一代产品是天赐之物。”。但她补充道，人们“将需要不同的药物”来减肥，同时又不会减轻肌肉质量或处理副作用。“有容纳两名以上球员的空间。”

Metsera wants to become one with a portfolio strategy that most companies outside of Lilly and Novo aren’t pursuing, according to Meanwell. With the $290 million it raised, the company acquired U.K.-based biotech Zihipp and formed a licensing pact with Korean drugmaker D&D Pharmatech. The former deal gave it a library of drug prospects targeting different gut hormones.

据Meanwell称，梅瑟拉希望成为一家拥有投资组合策略的公司，而除礼来和诺沃以外的大多数公司都不追求这种策略。该公司筹集了2.9亿美元，收购了总部位于英国的biotech Zihipp，并与韩国制药商D＆D Pharmatech签订了许可协议。前一笔交易为其提供了针对不同肠道激素的药物前景库。

The latter involved a technology capable of making oral versions of those drugs. The company’s done other smaller deals as well, but Meanwell wouldn’t provide specifics..

后者涉及一种能够制造这些药物口服版本的技术。该公司也做了其他规模较小的交易，但Meanwell不愿提供细节。。

The resulting pipeline includes an injectable GLP-1 drug like Wegovy with a prospect that, like Lilly’s experimental retatrutide, targets three gut hormones. Metsera also has a two-pronged medicine that stimulates amylin and so-called calcitonin receptors as well as multiple oral candidates.

由此产生的管道包括一种可注射的GLP-1药物，如Wegovy，其前景与礼来的实验性瑞他曲肽一样，靶向三种肠道激素。梅瑟拉还有一种双管齐下的药物，可以刺激胰淀素和所谓的降钙素受体以及多种口服候选药物。

The company views these, as well as other undisclosed programs, as the components of potential drug combinations. According to Meanwell, animal studies have suggested some of Metsera’s medicines may have superior characteristics — such as longer-lasting effects — than existing drugs.

该公司将这些以及其他未公开的计划视为潜在药物组合的组成部分。根据Meanwell的说法，动物研究表明，Metsera的一些药物可能比现有药物具有更好的特性，例如更持久的作用。

That hasn’t yet been proven, though, and Metsera may have to catch more advanced competitors to succeed. Phase 1 trials are underway for its GLP-1 drug as well as a second candidate. Others will follow shortly, with multiple study results coming later this year and early next.

然而，这一点尚未得到证实，梅瑟拉可能必须赶上更先进的竞争对手才能取得成功。GLP-1药物以及第二种候选药物的第一阶段试验正在进行中。其他人将很快跟进，今年晚些时候和明年初将有多项研究结果。

“If everything stopped today, if all we had were the existing products on the market, we would have made a tremendous impact,” Burow said. “But because we're biotech, we want to do more. We want to go farther.”

伯罗说：“如果今天一切停止，如果我们拥有的只是市场上现有的产品，我们将产生巨大的影响。”。“但由于我们是生物技术公司，我们想做得更多。我们想走得更远。”