EraCal and Nestlé Health Science team up to develop new treatment for obesity

According to the World Health Organization, obesity is a global epidemic with a yearly death toll in the millions. Recent news and popular discourses about Ozempic and other brands of semiglutide, which is used to treat diabetes but has been receiving much attention due to its use as an anti-obesity drug, have brought into the focus the need and desire for effective, non-invasive treatments for obesity and metabolic diseases.

EraCal Therapeutics has been developing a novel, oral-active anti-obesity drug, Era-379, based on a custom-built, peer-reviewed platform that overcomes the challenges of traditional research strategies by combining state-of-the-art microscopy with the power of large-scale phenotypic drug discovery. According to EraCal, their unique platform "harnesses the multi-organ complexity of zebrafish physiology and behavior, and is readily translatable to humans."

Now, EraCal Therapeutics and Nestlé Health Science entered into a research collaboration aiming to identify novel nutraceuticals relevant to controlling food intake. The joint program with Nestlé Health Science combines Nestle’s unique nutraceutical resources with EraCal’s differentiated drug discovery platform. These synergies aim to provide a new paradigm for first-line nutraceuticals for people suffering from metabolic diseases.

"Metabolic health is an area that we are extremely interested in, specifically how innovative nutritional solutions can help improve the health of patients and consumers," said Hans-Juergen Woerle, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of Nestlé Health Science. "Partnering with EraCal on their unique platform, we aim to identify new solutions for weight management."

We asked EraCal's CEO and co-founder, Josua Jordi, a few questions in light of today's announcement.
 

"WE ARE IN TRANSFORMATIVE TIMES FOR OBESITY MANAGEMENT"

The use of the diabetes drug Ozempic (semaglutide) for weight loss has been a prominent topic in the US lately, reflecting broad interest in effective treatments of obesity and metabolic health threats. What do you think about the shift toward obesity treatments that are less invasive than e.g., bariatric surgery, and what could it mean for the future of metabolic health?

Today, almost half of all adults and over 14 million children have obesity in the US, reflecting a blue ocean market. Semaglutide is the first drug that “works,” meaning obese patients injecting Ozempic regularly, lose 6-12% of their body weight in a year and may improve comorbidities. The market pays for this innovation as Ozempic demonstrates, which is the initial uptake of the obesity-pharmacotherapy market expected to hit USD 50 billion in 2030 (Morgan Stanley). Semaglutide, an injectable GLP-1 agonist, captures this initial market response despite its many known downsides for patients, including nausea, stomach pain, and constipation.

The future of obesity treatment will be orally delivered drugs. Orally delivered drugs provide access to a broader patient pool. Pfizer and Lilly have an oral GLP-1 agonist in the clinics, where they measured the expected side effects known from injectables GLP-1s. I expect oral-active drugs to replace most forms of surgeries and injectables in the short term.

This is where EraCal Therapeutics comes into play. Era-379, our lead drug candidate, is orally active, has stellar monotherapy potency in preclinical models paired with a clean side effect profile, and has a new mode of action in an area that has focused on only a handful of mechanisms over the past decades making Era-379 a novel approach for treating obesity. We expect oral active Era-379 and GLP-1s to drive patient health together in the future. Consequently, we are currently in transformative times for obesity management and what we see today is just the beginning of a new era.

What excites you most about this new collaboration?
Combining Nestlé Health Science's world-leading nutraceutical expertise with EraCal’s pioneering drug-discovery platforms should be an immediate winner. The synergy of state-of-the-art discovery with a track record of bringing clinically-proven nutraceuticals to market is a rare winning combination. The program targets first-in-line nutraceutical treatments of metabolic diseases, an area ready for disruption due to the lack of rigorous scientific benchmarking today. EraCal is delighted to collaborate with the very best in this industrial vertical with our very own core focus – the fight against obesity. It is a perfect fit for our vision of tackling obesity in a broader sense, as dietary interventions such as nutraceuticals can stand alone for obesity prevention and weight maintenance, among other concepts, and are required by the FDA as an adjuvant to pharmacotherapy.

EraCal participated in Venture Kick, made the TOP 100 Swiss Startup ranking, and the Venture Leaders program. What did those experiences mean to you? What did you gain from the exposure they provided within the startup ecosystem?
Jordi Montserrat, Beat Schillig, and their team are a fundamental part of EraCal’s success. They opened our eyes in their legendary kicker’s camp to be more entrepreneurial, more specialized, and more at the edge in EraCal’s entire execution. EraCal’s science today is more differentiated, more benchmarked, and more patient-focused than ever to ultimately give over 1 billion obese people worldwide one transformative medicine.

EraCal's founders, Dr. Simon Breitler (COO) and Dr. Josua Jordi (CEO)

EraCal was awarded CHF 130,000 by Venture Kick in 2019, emerging as a winner of the three-stage program that supports promising startups with funds and business development training. The same year, the startup secured funding in an oversubscribed seed round. In 2020, EraCal was chosen to participate in the Venture Leaders Life Science program (now Venture Leaders Biotech), which takes promising entrepreneurs on an investor roadshow in the life-science hub Boston. Last year, the startup entered a research collaboration with Novo Nordisk. The startup was also named a TOP 100 Swiss Startup in 2020, 2021, and 2022.