{"id":909913,"date":"2026-09-29T15:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909913\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:06:14","slug":"novo-agrees-2-6b-deal-for-hengruis-preclinical-glp-1-gip-drug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909913\/","title":{"rendered":"Novo agrees $2.6B deal for Hengrui’s preclinical GLP-1\/GIP drug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novo\u2019s ongoing attempts to rejuvenate its pipeline have seen the Big Pharma turn<\/a> to one of the most in-demand drug developers in China.<\/p>\n

The Danish drugmaker is paying $300 million upfront to China\u2019s Hengrui Pharma for a preclinical GLP-1\/GIP dual receptor agonist. In return for the ex-China rights to the drug, Novo is also on the line for potential milestone payments that could eventually bring the deal\u2019s total value up to $2.6 billion.<\/p>\n

Hengrui has designed the candidate, dubbed HRS-1596, for once-weekly oral dosing. The therapy aims to suppress appetite, stimulate insulin secretion and improve insulin sensitivity, according to Novo, in order to support its use for obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases.<\/p>\n

Hengrui has already secured the green light from regulators in China to take HRS-1596 into phase 1 trials, Novo said in a Sept. 29 release.<\/p>\n

Eli Lilly\u2019s blockbuster weight loss drug Zepbound is a GLP-1\/GIP drug, but the therapy is only available as an injection. Viking Therapeutics has a GLP-1\/GIP tablet in phase 2 development<\/a>, but it requires daily dosing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As HRS-1596 has the potential to be developed for once-weekly oral administration, the therapy could \u201csubstantially reduce dosing frequency and improve convenience compared with current offerings,\u201d Novo suggested.<\/p>\n

Hengrui has risen to become one of the most in-demand sources of biopharma innovation in China. As well as scoring huge multi-billion biobucks deals with Bristol Myers Squibb<\/a> and GSK<\/a> for early-stage assets ranging across respiratory, immunology, inflammation and oncology, Hengrui was also behind the portfolio of obesity drugs that helped Kailera Therapeutics secure its record-breaking IPO<\/a> back in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cNovo has pioneered the field of oral peptides and as leaders, we continuously look to advance our broad and deep oral pipeline across obesity, diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases through our strong internal capabilities and leading external innovation,\u201d Novo\u2019s Chief Scientific Officer Martin Holst Lange, M.D., Ph.D., said in this morning\u2019s release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHengrui Pharma has a proven track record of discovering and advancing innovative therapies with the patients in the center, and we are excited to add HRS-1596 to our growing pipeline and to explore its potential to raise the bar for convenience in the field,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Novo\u2019s turn to Hengrui comes as the company\u2019s leadership continues to try to persuade investors<\/a> that the pharma has a long-term plan to strengthen the business after a\u00a0rocky period of disappointing<\/a> readouts, cancelled<\/a> collaborations and ongoing challenges in the U.S. Novo streamlined its brand last week, with CEO Mike Doustdar telling Fierce<\/a> that his team \u201cfelt strongly that we needed to make some radical changes\u201d to adjust to a \u201cradically changed environment.<\/p>\n

Finding extended dosing options for its GLP-1 drugs has been a recent stated goal of Novo\u2019s leadership, with the pharma striking a 1.17 billion euro ($1.3 billion) deal last week to combine Nanexa\u2019s<\/a> long-acting injectable drug delivery platform with Novo\u2019s obesity and Type 2 diabetes drugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novo\u2019s ongoing attempts to rejuvenate its pipeline have seen the Big Pharma turn to one of the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,6824,512,1096,477971,9636,137,305095,477970,490,5889,4390,7532,555],"class_list":["post-909913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-biotech","tag-china","tag-deals","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-glp-1","tag-health","tag-jiangsu-hengrui-pharmaceuticals","tag-licensing-deals","tag-medication","tag-novo-nordisk","tag-obesity","tag-type-2-diabetes","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}