Roche Holding AG has agreed to buy Carmot Therapeutics Inc, the developer of a new kind of weight-loss treatment that is the hottest commodity in the pharmaceutical industry, in a deal that could eventually push the Swiss drugmaker into competition with European rival Novo Nordisk A/S.
Roche agreed to pay as much as US$3.1 billion for three clinical-stage assets in obesity and diabetes, with an initial payment of US$2.7 billion and additional milestones of up to US$400 million, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Although Carmot’s drugs are still in the early stages of development, the deal could lead to a competitor to the likes of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly & Co’s Zepbound, which are fueling the growth of a weight-loss market estimated to reach US$100 billion by the end of the decade.
Photo: Reuters
Roche is joining a race by global pharmaceutical giants to get into that business, with Pfizer Inc also developing a new weight-loss drug and AstraZeneca PLC signing a licensing deal with Chinese drug developer Eccogene Inc (誠益生物) for a pill to treat obesity.
Among Carmot’s financial backers is Horizons Ventures Ltd (維港投資), the private investment arm of tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), Hong Kong’s richest person, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
Carmot’s lead asset is a treatment for obesity in patients with and without Type-2 diabetes. Injected subcutaneously once per week, it has potential as a standalone and combination therapy to improve weight loss and be expanded to other indications, Roche said.
Upon closing the deal, Roche would obtain all of Berkeley, California-based Carmot’s clinical and preclinical assets. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the