Biotechnology startup Prolynx has raised $70 million in Series A funding that will support plans to develop obesity drugs that require less frequent dosing than existing medications.

生物技术初创公司Prolynx已经筹集了7000万美元的A轮融资，这笔资金将用于支持开发比现有药物需要更少剂量的肥胖症药物的计划。

Announced Thursday, the Emeryville, California-based startup’s financing was led by 5AM Ventures, OrbiMed and Monograph Capital. The company will use that cash to advance a portfolio of longer-acting “incretin” drugs — which stimulate or mimic the effects of certain gut hormones — as well as “non-incretin” therapies, according to CEO Chris Boulton. .

周四宣布，这家位于加利福尼亚州埃默里维尔的初创公司的融资由5AM Ventures、OrbiMed和Monograph Capital领投。公司首席执行官克里斯·鲍尔顿表示，公司将利用这笔资金推进一系列长效“肠促胰岛素”药物（刺激或模拟某些肠道激素的作用）以及“非肠促胰岛素”疗法的研发。

Boultoun described the biotech’s portfolio as potential solutions for a disease, obesity, that “is not just one condition, but multiple conditions.” That view is reflected by the opportunity drugmakers still see in making new obesity medicines, despite the dominance of two effective and widely used therapies, Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy..

布欧顿将这家生物技术公司的产品组合描述为针对一种疾病——肥胖症——的潜在解决方案，他指出肥胖症“不仅仅是一种病症，而是多种病症的综合”。尽管礼来公司的Zepbound和诺和诺德公司的Wegovy这两种有效且广泛使用的疗法在市场上占据主导地位，但制药商仍看到开发新型肥胖症药物的机会，这一观点也反映了他们的态度。

Those drugs spur significant weight loss, but also require weekly injections and are associated with certain gastrointestinal side effects that can lead people to stop treatment. Many drugmakers are

这些药物能显著减轻体重，但需要每周注射，并伴有某些胃肠道副作用，可能导致人们停止治疗。许多制药商正在

tinkering with new variations

摆弄新的变体

that might be more potent, convenient, tolerable or dosed less frequently, increasing the likelihood that a patient stays on treatment.

可能更有效、更方便、更可耐受或给药频率更低，增加了患者坚持治疗的可能性。

The potential reward is substantial. Combined sales this year of Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro — a diabetes drug that shares Zepbound’s same active ingredient — have made it the world’s most lucrative medicine. Some

潜在的回报是巨大的。礼来公司的Zepbound和Mounjaro（一款与Zepbound拥有相同活性成分的糖尿病药物）今年的联合销售额，已使其成为全球最赚钱的药物。一些...

analysts expect

分析师预计

the market for Zepbound and other drugs like it to surpass $100 billion by 2030.

到2030年，Zepbound和其他类似药物的市场将超过1000亿美元。

That opportunity has spurred

那个机会已经激发了

dealmaking

交易谈判

by

通过

large pharmaceutical companies

大型制药公司

and investments by venture capitalists. Each of the last two years, venture firms have poured at least $1 billion into startups working on metabolic disease drugs, according to

以及风险资本家的投资。根据统计，过去两年中，风险投资公司每年至少投入 10 亿美元到致力于代谢疾病药物的初创公司。

BioPharma Dive data

生物制药潜水数据

.

。

Chris Boulton, a veteran of Amgen and Sanofi, joined Prolynx as its CEO in November 2025.

克里斯·布顿（Chris Boulton），安进和赛诺菲的老将，于2025年11月加入Prolynx担任首席执行官。

Permission granted by Prolynx

普罗林克斯许可 granted

Prolynx aims to stand out by focusing on drugs that can be dosed as infrequently as once monthly or quarterly. It’s leaning on a type of extended-release technology Prolynx

Prolynx 旨在通过专注于每月或每季度仅需给药一次的药物来脱颖而出。该公司依托一种缓释技术。

originally targeted for use

最初的目标是用于

in cancer when the company was launched more than a decade ago by founders Daniel Santi and Gary Ashley.

在癌症领域，当公司十多年前由创始人丹尼尔·桑蒂和加里·阿什利创立时。

According to Boulton, the company’s technology involves proprietary chemical linkers that bind a drug to a carrier molecule and enables a controlled, predictable and sustained release of that therapy. One way Prolynx will use it is to make a

根据布顿的说法，该公司的技术涉及将药物与载体分子结合的专有化学链接子，能够实现对该疗法可控、可预测和持续的释放。普罗林克斯公司将使用该技术的一种方式是制造一种

version of semaglutide

semaglutide版本

, the active ingredient in Novo’s Wegovy, that’s administered once monthly.

，诺和诺德公司Wegovy中的活性成分，每月给药一次。

“If you can find treatments that last a little bit longer, you can smooth out those peaks and troughs and minimize some dose-related side effects,” Boulton said.

“如果你能找到持续时间稍长的治疗方法，你就可以平滑这些高峰和低谷，并尽量减少一些与剂量相关的副作用，”布顿说。

Boulton said the company intends to make use of a

鲍尔顿说，公司打算利用一个

regulatory pathway

监管途径

that enables drugmakers to bring to market modified versions of existing medicines more quickly, in part, by borrowing from existing data.

这使得制药商能够通过借鉴现有数据，更快地将现有药物的改良版本推向市场。

Behind a longer-acting semaglutide are formulations of a dual-acting GLP-1/GIPR agonist and an amylin drug — both well-studied obesity targets — that could be dosed monthly or quarterly. The company didn’t disclose when it expects to get its experimental medicines into clinical testing.

在一款长效司美格鲁肽的背后，是一种双效GLP-1/GIPR激动剂和一种艾米林药物的配方，这两种药物都是研究较为深入的肥胖症治疗靶点，并且可以每月或每季度给药。该公司并未透露预计何时将其试验性药物投入临床测试。

Boulton, who has worked in obesity or metabolic drug roles at Amgen, Sanofi and AstraZeneca, joined

布顿曾在安进、赛诺菲和阿斯利康从事肥胖症或代谢药物相关工作，后加入

Prolynx

普罗林克斯

in November.

十一月。

“Working at big companies, you know what good looks like,” he said. “You know where the bar is and you can aim for that.”

“在大公司工作，你知道什么是好的，”他说。“你知道标准在哪里，你可以朝着这个目标努力。”