Roche obtained CT-173, a PYY mimetic, in its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics in December 2023. The company reported the change in its second quarter earnings call.
Roche will no longer move forward with CT-173, an investigational PYY analog that it was developing for the treatment of obesity.
In the pharma’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Teresa Graham, CEO of the group’s Pharmaceuticals Division, said that the molecule fell short of Roche’s standard in assessing whether further investment in a drug candidate would be worthwhile.
“When we bounced it up against our bar assessment, the criteria for developability and competitiveness just weren’t there,” Graham said during the presentation.
Roche gained ownership of CT-173 in its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics in December 2023. The drug mimicks the gut hormone PYY, which helps to facilitate secretion of insulin in response to blood glucose levels and to regulate appetite. In its first-quarter earnings report in April, Roche still had plans to initiate Phase I studies of the asset this year.
Preclinical data that Roche presented in September 2024 showed that when combined with CT-388, a dual agonist of the GLP-1 and GIP receptors, CT-173 helped break weight loss plateaus in mouse models. The drug combo also resulted in slower weight rebound after stopping treatment as compared with the individual agents alone.
Still, Graham insisted that the discontinuation of CT-173 “has very little impact on the overall obesity portfolio.” The molecule “was a very early-stage program,” she said, adding that the company remains “very confident” in its obesity portfolio. Roche has “a potentially best-in-disease and highly competitive portfolio of products,” Graham said.
In particular, Roche’s pipeline is well-positioned to take advantage of the different subsegments that the obesity market will find itself going into over time, Graham explained. “Whether that’s into comorbidities, whether that’s into the amount of weight loss . . . we have a portfolio that’s uniquely designed to take advantage of that further segmentation,” she added.
Many of Roche’s weight loss assets come from Carmot, headlined by CT-388, which was the centerpiece of the 2023 acquisition. In May 2024, Phase Ib data showed that the asset, administered once weekly via subcutaneous injection, could lower body weight by 18.8% versus placebo. The company expects to receive Phase III-enabling readouts for CT-388 by the end of the year, as per its presentation on Thursday.
In its Q2 report on Thursday, Roche revealed 15.504 billion Swiss Francs, or nearly $19.6 billion, in earnings, representing an 8% year-on-year growth. Ocrevus, indicated for multiple sclerosis, was Roche’s best-selling product with around $2.18 billion sales in the quarter, up 10% year-on-year. Other top performers included the hemophilia A therapy Hemlibra (nearly $1.6 billion) and the eye injection Vabysmo (roughly $1.32 billion).
