Obesity startup Alveus Therapeutics launched Thursday with about $160 million in venture funding aimed at supporting testing of a drug that works similarly to a closely watched therapy being developed by Amgen.
The Series A round will also help fund the final research necessary to seek human-testing permission from the Food and Drug Administration for a second obesity drug. That therapy aims at amylin, another popular target for weight loss medicines.
The lead drug, called ALV-100, is a fusion protein that stimulates one gut hormone receptor, GLP-1R, and blocks another one called GIPR. Amgen is pursuing a comparable strategy with a treatment called MariTide, which is currently in late-stage testing but has produced results that have left some investors and analysts skeptical of its prospects.
Alveus executives hope to prove the company’s drug will prove to have durable effects and fewer tolerability issues than marketed medicines from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Primate testing also suggested that the drug could help people who take it preserve lean body mass better than available GLP-1 therapies.
The amylin targeting agent it calls ALV-200, is a peptide drug designed to be more selective than advanced agents, also potentially improving its side effect profile.
“Obesity is one of the fastest-growing global healthcare challenges, and today’s therapies leave patients struggling to maintain weight loss over time,” said CEO Raj Kannan, in a statement. Alveus’ experimental drugs “are being developed to deliver durable efficacy with infrequent dosing, improved tolerability, and meaningfully better body-composition outcomes.”
The funding round was led by New Rhein Healthcare Investors, Andera Partners, and Omega Funds. Sanofi Capital, Kurma Partners, Avego BioScience Capital, and other healthcare investors also participated. Andera partner Jan Van den Bossche and Omega managing director Claudio Nessi are joining Alveus’ board in conjunction with the round.
“This Series A financing underscores our confidence in Alveus’ ability to set new standards of care in obesity and metabolic disease,” Nessi said in a statement.
Alveus is also developing amylin drugs that are oral small molecules or “multifunctional” therapies, the company said.
