GLP-1 start-up Metsera launches with $290 million

After selling his previous firm, The Medicines Company, to Novartis for $9.7 billion, Clive Meanwell is on to his next challenge: a start-up called Metsera that aims to expand on the success of glucagon-like peptide-1 amide (GLP-1) drugs.

Metsera formally launched Thursday, about 2 years after its founding by Arch Venture Partners and Population Health Partners. Meanwell chairs the latter firm. The start-up has received $290 million from investors including F-Prime Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Mubadala Investment, Newpath Partners, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Endpoints News first reported Metsera’s existence earlier this month.

Metsera is advancing a suite of peptide and peptide-antibody conjugate drugs for weight loss and other indications, all based on GLP-1 agonists. The technical foundation for its drugs comes from Zihipp Limited, a London start-up Metsera acquired for its vast library of 20,000-plus gut hormone peptides. Zihipp was chaired by Stephen Bloom, who was among the first scientists to publish on the role of GLP-1 in appetite (Nature 1996, DOI: 10.1038/379069a0) and now heads research and development at Metsera.

“Our point of view is that GLP-1 is probably the core or backbone of pretty much anything anyone’s going to do,” Meanwell says.

Metsera’s rosterincludes injectable GLP-1 receptor agonists, one of which is already in Phase 1 clinical trials; a dual amylin and calcitonin receptor agonist combined with a GLP-1 receptor agonist; and oral peptides, two of which are slated to be tested in humans in the next year or two.

The Metsera team favors peptides over small molecules for a few reasons, Meanwell says: they’re more specific; they have less risk of off-target side effects; and Metsera’s team is already well-versed in manufacturing them at scale. The Medicines Company’s largest product was the blood thinner Angiomax, a thrombin-inhibiting oligopeptide that made hundreds of millions of dollars each year at its peak.

GLP-1 receptor agonists have proven effective not only for weight loss but also for cardiovascular illness and sleep apnea and potentially for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. When the time comes for Metsera to run large Phase 3 trials, Meanwell says, it’s likely those will be the primary outcomes, with weight loss as a secondary end point.

“[COVID-19] showed that the underlying health of the population really matters,” Meanwell says. “It worked everybody up to the idea that obesity and cardiovascular disease really matter for general health.”