Versant Ventures has made its fourth investment in an obesity startup in eight months, co-leading a $65 million Series A round in Helicore Biopharma, a developer of an antibody drug that blocks a gut hormone tied to hunger and blood sugar levels.
Versant’s investment in Helicore follows the firm’s involvement in rounds for Antag Therapeutics, Pep2Tango Therapeutics and SixPeaks Bio. Like Antag, Helicore is studying drugs that inhibit that hormone, called GIP.
Helicore’s lead drug, dubbed HCR-188, blocks GIP ligands in digestive cells, setting it apart from drugs like Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Amgen’s MariTide, which take aim at GIP receptors found in cells that signal insulin release.
(Zepbound stimulates, rather than blocks, GIP, while both it and MariTide stimulate a second hormone called GLP-1 that’s become central to obesity treatment.)
Helicore claims that, by blocking GIP secretion, HCR-188 and similar agents in its pipeline “may uniquely prevent GIP signaling in the brain,” which could lead to increased mealtime satiety and other metabolic activity that can help reduce weight.
It bases its claims on studies of people with genetic mutations that result in loss of GIP activity. These individuals tend to be leaner and have reduced levels of certain lipids in their fat-storing cells.
“Helicore’s novel approach is backed by robust evidence and could offer cardiometabolic benefits alongside quality weight loss and improved tolerability when combined with GLP-1,” Carlo Rizzuto, managing director at Versant and a Helicore board member, said in a statement.
Whether to block or stimulate GIP has become a hot debate in obesity research. Some scientists hypothesize that stimulating GIP, as Zepbound does, could desensitize the protein on pancreatic cells that receives the hormone, effective deactivating it the same way an inhibitor might. MariTide blocks GIP, while stimulating GLP-1.
HCR-188 has been tested in preclinical models in combination with GLP-1. The company says its pipeline includes GIP antibody conjugates that can also target GLP-1 and other pathways that might help people with obesity lose weight.
Orbimed joined Versant in co-leading the round, which also included investment from Longitude Capital and Wellington. The company is led by CEO Gerrit Klaerner, who co-founded a kidney drug company called Illypsa that was bought by Amgen and another one called Relypsa that was acquired by Galenica.
