The Danish-founded biotech company Pila Pharma, which has former Novo Nordisk researcher Dorte X.
Gram, as founder and chairman of the board, has just raised 10 million Swedish kroner in a directed issue for a new obesity-related study.
An intense battle is unfolding for global market shares within weight-reducing medicines, where major players such as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are on the offensive.
The smaller Danish-founded biotech company Pila Pharma, which is listed on the stock exchange in Sweden, is now entering the field. The company has just raised 10 million Swedish kroner in a private placement to investigate the effect of the company’s molecule in obesity. The phase-2a study will take place over the next year and may be decisive for the company’s future.
Pila Pharma was founded in 2014 by Danish Dorte X. Gram. She has a background as a veterinarian and former researcher at Novo Nordisk, where she was part of the obesity research department for a number of years. She was the researcher who found and identified the molecule that later became Semaglutide, which today is the cornerstone of Novo Nordisk’s injectable medications Ozempic and Wegovy.
According to Pila Pharma, the capital raising is to be used to investigate the safety of the molecule when they escalate the dosage, as well as to expand the size of the study, so that through empirical statistical calculations it will be possible to determine whether there is potential for a new drug in tablet form for the treatment of obesity.
– When the company started 10 years ago, obesity was largely not a recognized disease. But it has largely become so today. There has always been a focus on type-2 diabetes, which is also a large market, but in recent years the door has been kicked in to a new market for weight-regulating drugs. The new molecules, primarily of the GLP-1 type, are extremely potent, and thus the code has really been cracked for potentially large weight loss in a shorter time for people with specific types of obesity, says Gustav H. Gram, CEO of Pila Pharma.
A market in enormous growth
In 2024, however, the industry has also begun to focus to a greater extent on the concept of ‘functional weight loss’, where the weight loss is potentially lower, but in return with higher preservation of muscle mass. This is seen where GLP-1 is combined with other types of molecules. At the same time, there is also a large focus on the development of oral solutions, i.e. tablet treatment, exactly like Pila Pharma’s.
The company itself states that they are at a point where the hypothesis behind their technology is so mature that it can be concretized and tested. The company is therefore now starting a study with a focus on developing a type of medicine with a different mechanism for the huge market for weight loss medicine, which is estimated to be well over 700 billion kroner annually from 2030.
– We are still at an early stage when it comes to the concepts of weight loss medicine, but with the huge demand there will be room for many types of products. With the new capital, we must seek clarification on whether we can lower body weight and thereby play a role in the market and potentially position ourselves completely uniquely in relation to being the only company that works with precisely this type of mechanism for the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases. This will of course potentially be extremely attractive to investors, says Gustav H. Gram, referring to a possible agreement or acquisition, and elaborates:
– Obesity research has been a long time coming, and capital is only really being thrown at it now that everyone can see the potential. It is a global trend that deals with a global problem, and of course we would like to tap into that.
Focus on the next step
Pila Pharma is in phase 2 of the development of their innovative medicine, which can potentially also reduce weight in obese type-2 diabetics. If the company is successful with their studies, where results are expected in about a year’s time, a larger phase 2b study is likely to await.
In previous studies, the company has already demonstrated good safety and signs of effectiveness in regulating type-2 diabetes and a very large lowering of a biomarker that indicates the risk of heart failure. So the molecule has an apparently strong cardiovascular profile in addition to the effects on blood sugar regulation and potential weight regulation.
– If we can demonstrate an effect on obesity in this study, we will be the first and only ones to have succeeded in using this type of molecule – a TRPV1 antagonist – to treat metabolic diseases. It is a drug class that has so far been mostly known in connection with pain relief, and if it turns out in our favor, we will be in a completely unique position with what we in the industry call a “first-in-class” product. It will in itself be special to be able to write a new chapter in medical history, but it will also position us as one of the very few late-stage biotech companies that are listed on the stock market within the potentially huge market for obesity medicine, says Gustav H. Grams.
Pila Pharma, headquartered in Malmö, is a biotech company that operates in oral treatments for type 2 diabetes and obesity. The company is registered on Nasdaq First North GM in Stockholm. www.pilapharma.com
Source: it-kanalen.dk
