A No­var­tis castoff drug gets new life at an At­las-backed start­up look­ing to blaze a trail in obe­si­ty

Af­ter decades of fail­ure, the obe­si­ty field is fi­nal­ly see­ing some ma­jor progress with the suc­cess of a sta­ble of GLP-1 di­a­betes drugs show­ing clin­i­cal ben­e­fit. A small biotech thinks it has some­thing new to of­fer in that space with an old­er drug, and in­vestors like what they see so far.

Ver­sa­nis Bio launched Tues­day with a $70 mil­lion A round backed by biotech blue-chip­pers At­las Ven­ture and Medicxi with lead can­di­date bima­grum­ab, an in-li­censed No­var­tis drug orig­i­nal­ly tar­get­ing mus­cle weak­ness, gear­ing up for a Phase II study in obe­si­ty.

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