A recently formed company that was spun out of Imperial College London has signed a deal with US drugs company Nastech to develop a nasal spray that could treat obesity by reducing appetite.
Nastech also signed an agreement with American pharmaceuticals group Merck yesterday to license the spray, which is in early clinical trials. This deal could bring in $346m (£191m) to Nastech if the drug is approved by regulators and sells well.
Nastech would then have to pay an undisclosed amount to Imperial's new venture, Thiakis, and money would be paid to the university, the Wellcome Trust and Diabetes UK, which funded some of the research that led to the potential treatment. Nastech has bought a minority stake in Thiakis as part of the deal.
Thiakis was set up in the summer by the head of investigative medicine at Imperial, Professor Steve Bloom, and Dr John Burt, who recently left the college's technology commercialisation department. The two men signed a deal with Imperial last week to secure the rights to Prof Bloom's work on two hormones, PYY and oxyntomodulin, which are produced by the body to suppress appetite. The company is talking to early stage investors and pharmaceutical companies about developing tablets containing the hormones to treat obesity.
Another British company looking at obesity drugs is Alizyme, which reported first-half results yesterday.
It said it would begin clinical trials in the UK to compare its potential blockbuster obesity drug, ATL-962, with Xenical, the market leader, when treating diabetes.
Xenical was developed by Swiss firm Roche although Britain's GlaxoSmithKline recently bought the rights to over-the-counter sales for just over £50m. The drug works in a similar way to Alizyme's: both disrupt the digestion of fat so less is absorbed. Alizyme's chief executive, Dr Richard Palmer, said ATL-962 has fewer side effects that mean "lower dry cleaning bills". Xenical has the effect of causing involuntary defecation in some patients.
Companies are keen to crack the market in drugs for obesity. Another in development is Acomplia, from the French group Sanofi-Aventis, although potential adverse effects of depression and anxiety are yet to be clarified. Research firm Datamonitor predicted that Alizyme's product would be market leader by 2012.
Alizyme reported first-half losses of £1m against £7m the year before, due to the stage the firm is at in the development of its key drugs. It also received £1.6m from selling Japanese rights to its obesity drug.
After two rounds of fundraising last year, the company said it should be able to fund itself through 2006.
Although Alizyme's business model is to license its drugs in development to big firms, Dr Palmer said that small firms would fare better in future because they would no longer require thousands of salespeople, as doctors look for more "evidence-based medicine" to cut healthcare bills.
