{"id":389974,"date":"2023-12-22T07:13:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T12:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/signal-lilly-searches-for-new-obesity-drugs-in-partnership-with-fauna-bio\/"},"modified":"2023-12-22T09:37:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T14:37:12","slug":"signal-lilly-searches-for-new-obesity-drugs-in-partnership-with-fauna-bio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/signal-lilly-searches-for-new-obesity-drugs-in-partnership-with-fauna-bio\/","title":{"rendered":"Signal: Lilly searches for new obesity drugs in partnership with Fauna Bio","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n Share this article<\/p>\n

<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
The 13-lined ground squirrel\u2019s hibernation may hold the secrets to a new weight loss treatment. Photo: Karel Bock via Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and<\/a> biotech firm Fauna Bio yesterday (21 December) announced a partnership deal to search for new anti-obesity drugs by examining the hibernation of animals, including the 13-lined ground squirrel.<\/p>\n

The deal is worth up to $494m plus royalties and allows Lilly to utilise Fauna\u2019s Convergence artificial intelligence (AI) platform, which holds biometric data from over 450 mammal species.<\/p>\n

Obesity drugs have reshaped the pharmaceutical landscape, catapulting current market leader Novo Nordisk<\/a> from a successful but relatively small Danish diabetes specialist into the second-largest drug company by market cap. Lilly is the largest, and its anti-obesity drug Zepbound has proven more effective in clinical trials than Novo\u2019s Wegovy.<\/p>\n

Lilly clearly isn\u2019t satisfied, though. By partnering with Fauna, the company aims to discover the secrets of hibernating mammals that are able to reduce their metabolic rate to 1% to 3%<\/a> of normal in the case of the 13-lined ground squirrel, a focus of Chief Science Officer Katie Grabek\u2019s PhD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ideally, understanding the animal\u2019s ability to manipulate its metabolism will help to explain how the metabolic processes of humans are affected by genetics and how to alter these to induce weight loss.<\/p>\n

Lilly is increasingly focused on anti-obesity and diabetes drugs, as demonstrated by the rising number of mentions of ‘obesity’ in its company filings, per GlobalData analytics. This year, it has become the second most mentioned keyword behind ‘revenue’. GlobalData is the parent company of Medical Device Network<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles
\n on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.<\/p>\n