BioAge Labs is developing weight loss drugs by targeting "the biology of human aging"
The filing comes as investors have rallied around weight loss drug stocks. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the drug makers behind Wegovy and Zepbound, have seen their stocks climb 41% and 68%, respectively, over the past 12 months.
The Richmond, California-based startup is now trying to get in on the action. In its filing the company said its developing drug candidates for metabolic disease including obesity “by targeting the biology of human aging.”
BioAge’s leading drug candidate is azelaprag, a pill that mimics apelin, a peptide that is released during exercise and that decreases with age.
Early clinical trial results suggest that taking azelaprag along with an injectable weight loss drug results in increased weight loss and prevents muscle mass loss, a side-effect of current weight loss drugs.
BioAge started a phase 2 clinical trial this year of azelaprag in combination with tizerpertide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. The company plans to start a second phase 2 trial of the drug next year to see how it works with semaglutide, the drug behind Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic.
BioAge’s filing comes just months after it raised $170 million in financing this past February.
BioAge isn’t the only company working to disrupt the weight loss drug duopoly dominated by Novo Nordisk, and Eli Lilly. Surging demand for weight loss medications has transformed the two pharmaceutical developers into some world’s most valuable companies — and they could become the first $1 trillion pharma firms.
Now several drug makers are racing to develop their own weight loss competitors.
Viking Therapeutics is developing both a weight loss injection and a pill.
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