Roche expects that the three obesity and diabetes candidates it picked up from its recent buyout of Carmot Therapeutics will bring in up to $3.6 billion per year, executives said at an investor event Monday.
The company said it was banking on the weekly injection CT-388 — as well as daily oral pill CT-996 — to contribute to that number.
CT-388 is a dual GLP-1 and GIP receptor modulator that is currently in a Phase II trial for patients with or without type 2 diabetes. Over the summer, data revealed that it led to an 18.8% reduction in weight loss after 24 weeks compared to placebo.
CT-996 is also a GLP-1 receptor agonist that showed promising results in July, resulting in average weight loss of 6.1% within a month. But more data showed both candidates led to severe gastrointestinal side effects, triggering Roche’s stock to drop earlier this month.
The third candidate included in the estimate, CT-868, is a once-daily injectable GLP-1 that is being investigated for patients with type 1 diabetes and obesity. Roche said it expects all three drugs to launch commercially in 2028 or later.
Currently, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are the dominators in the weight loss market, with Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy bringing in $13.9 billion and $4.5 billion, respectively, in sales last year.
But more pharma companies are hoping to grab a slice of the lucrative market as demand continues to soar.
At Roche’s Pharma Day event on Monday, Teresa Graham, CEO of Roche’s pharma division, told analysts that there’s plenty of room for other players.
“I would say that in a $100 to $250 billion market, there’s a lot of room for multiple players,” Graham said, according to STAT. “We wouldn’t have moved forward with these assets if we didn’t feel they were differentiated.”
Last year, Roche acquired Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion, noting at the time that combining Carmot’s obesity assets with its “diagnostics expertise and portfolio of products across cardiovascular and metabolic diseases” was part of its goal to expand into obesity and “improve the standard of care.”