Lil­ly part­ners with start­up Fau­na Bio to see if a squir­rel’s hi­ber­na­tion could lead to new obe­si­ty drugs

Eli Lil­ly al­ready has mul­ti­ple obe­si­ty drug can­di­dates in mid- and late-stage clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment to pad its suc­cess with its GIP and GLP-1 drug Zep­bound, but a new part­ner­ship re­vealed Thurs­day morn­ing shows that its am­bi­tions in the field ex­tend well be­yond this decade and next.

The In­di­anapo­lis-based Big Phar­ma’s fourth or fifth gen­er­a­tion of obe­si­ty med­ica­tions could de­rive from stud­ies in­to the hi­ber­na­tion of cute lit­tle squir­rels in Oshkosh, WI.

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