{"id":81805,"date":"2026-06-11T20:14:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/81805\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T20:14:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:14:45","slug":"roche-axes-carmot-obesity-asset-3-cancer-drugs-in-rd-clear-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/81805\/","title":{"rendered":"Roche axes Carmot obesity asset, 3 cancer drugs in R&D clear-out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roche has axed one of the obesity assets from its $2.7 billion Carmot Therapeutics\u00a0buyout<\/a>, sending the molecule to the scrap heap months after hyping its potential to drive weight loss past the GLP-1 plateau. The drugmaker disclosed the action alongside news of a cull of early-phase solid tumor programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dropped obesity candidate, CT-173, is a long-acting PYY analog. Roche was\u00a0planning<\/a> (PDF) to start a phase 1 trial of the molecule this year. However, the Swiss drugmaker has decided to stop development before entering the clinic. Roche\u00a0disclosed<\/a> (PDF) the decision as part of its financial results for the second quarter. Teresa Graham, CEO Roche Pharmaceuticals, discussed the decision on the company’s conference call with the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is a very early stage program … and ultimately, when we bounced it up against our bar assessment, the criteria for developability and competitiveness just weren’t there, and so we made the decision to terminate it,” Graham said. “Overall with our obesity portfolio, I think we still feel very confident that we have a potentially best in disease and highly competitive portfolio of products.”<\/p>\n

The discontinuation marks a rapid reversal in Roche\u2019s take on the molecule. Roche\u00a0picked<\/a> CT-173 out for special attention at an investor event in September. Manu Chakravarthy, M.D., Ph.D., global head of cardiovascular, renal and metabolism product development at Roche, used the event to discuss preclinical data he called \u201cvery exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roche found combining CT-173 with its GLP-1\/GIP asset CT-388 drove a \u201cvery deep and fairly sustained reduction in body weight, way above and beyond either agent alone,\u201d Chakravarthy said. Beyond that, Chakravarthy said the data pointed to a potential answer to \u201cthe big question\u201d in obesity: Can you reset body weight at a lower level than the plateau reached by GLP-1 drugs and other incretins?<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the plateau, when you treat these animals that are overweight or actually obese in this case, you actually drive even further weight loss,\u201d Chakravarthy said. \u201cSo this is very exciting for us, because this is actually telling us potentially that there\u2019s an opportunity to maybe reset the body weight set point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roche revealed it has dropped CT-173 as part of a quarterly update that also saw it toss out four phase 1 candidates. CEO Thomas Schinecker discussed Roche’s approach to prioritization on the media call, explaining that the company has increased the value per pipeline program and freed up money for new assets and high-value activities such as obesity and Alzheimer’s disease studies.<\/p>\n

The discarded phase 1 programs include three solid tumor assets. Eciskafusp alfa is a fusion protein that consists of an anti-PD-1 antibody linked to an engineered, variant form of IL-2, the cytokine at the heart of multiple big, failed immuno-oncology bets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Swiss drugmaker\u00a0started<\/a> a phase 1 trial of the candidate in 2020 but stopped enrollment well short of its original target last year. Roche recently\u00a0withdrew<\/a> a phase 1 bladder cancer trial before enrolling any patients. In 2022, Roche\u00a0paid<\/a> $250 million for a Good Therapeutics PD-1-regulated IL-2 program that it said \u201cnicely complements\u201d its existing work on the targets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roche also jettisoned RG6614, a USP1 inhibitor it\u00a0picked up<\/a> in a deal with KSQ Therapeutics in 2023. The regulation of DNA damage response pathways by USP1 spurred hope that inhibitors of the enzyme could work as single agents and in combination with PARP inhibitors. However, responses\u00a0were very rare<\/a> in phase 1. Roche recently\u00a0stopped<\/a> enrollment in the trial and brought the completion date forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bayer\u2019s Vividion Therapeutics\u00a0disclosed<\/a> Roche\u2019s other solid tumor discontinuation last month. The drug candidate, which inhibits DNA repair enzyme WRN, has slotted back into Vividion\u2019s pipeline, and a phase 1 trial\u00a0is continuing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, Roche culled the phase 1 eye disease candidate RG7921. Little is known publicly about the asset. Roche initially\u00a0took<\/a> (PDF) the molecule into the clinic as a treatment for neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The company began\u00a0listing<\/a> (PDF) retinal vein occlusion as the lead indication in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roche has axed one of the obesity assets from its $2.7 billion Carmot Therapeutics\u00a0buyout, sending the molecule to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[1115,3226,8270,9275,16799,750,134,41967],"class_list":["post-81805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-biotech","tag-carmot-therapeutics","tag-eye-disease","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-obesity-drugs","tag-pipeline","tag-roche","tag-solid-tumor"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116733311036291155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}