Business Wire

BOEHRINGER-INGELHEIM

13.4.2021 14:02:12 CEST | Business Wire | Press release

Share
Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma Advance to Phase 2 Clinical Testing in NASH and Obesity

Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma A/S (“Zealand”) (NASDAQ: ZEAL) announced the initiation of two Phase 2 trials of the GLP-1/glucagon dual agonist BI 456906 for adults who are overweight or obese and for adults with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The compound was in-licensed from Zealand in 2011 and is being investigated in an ongoing Phase 2 study in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The once-weekly therapy may offer additional benefits on both chronic weight management, and NASH improvement and prevention of the progression to cirrhosis compared to currently available treatments with mono GLP-1 agonist compounds. BI 456906 is part of Boehringer Ingelheim’s growing portfolio in the obesity and NASH disease areas.

“Obesity and NASH are areas of high unmet medical need, with limited approved treatments currently available. They are associated with lower quality of life and increased mortality,” explains Prof. Arun J. Sanyal, Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Molecular Pathology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond, Virginia. “I hope that this new approach will bring a much-needed treatment option for HCPs and people afflicted with obesity or NASH.”

Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand have a fruitful longstanding partnership, bringing together Zealand’s expertise in the discovery of innovative peptide-based medicines with Boehringer Ingelheim’s expertise in the research and development of novel medicines for cardiometabolic diseases. “We are very excited to see the initiation of Phase 2 trials of BI 456906 for obesity and NASH,” said Adam Steensberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Zealand Pharma. “By combining GLP-1 and glucagon agonism mechanistically, we believe our dual agonist has the potential to achieve increased weight loss, via improvement of the patient’s metabolism, and also has potential to alleviate NASH by reducing upstream steatosis.”

“Our cardiometabolic research and development is focusing on discovering novel treatments for obesity and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), to meet the large unmet need among these groups,” explains Waheed Jamal, MD, Head of Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Respiratory Medicine at Boehringer Ingelheim. “We are exploring a number of unique approaches with great potential to help people living with obesity or NASH. We believe dual agonists are next generation drug candidates with a potential for higher efficacy in weight loss and NASH improvement/cirrhosis prevention.”

Under the terms of the GLP-1/glucagon dual agonist licensing agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim funds all research, development and commercialization activities. Zealand is entitled to receive up to EUR 345 million in outstanding milestone payments. No milestone payments are due with the initiations of these Phase 2 studies. The agreement also carries high-single digit to low-double digit percentage royalties on global sales.

Please click on the following link for ‘Notes to Editors’ and ‘References’:

http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/press-release/clinical-phase2-trials-nash-and-obesity

Link:

ClickThru

About Business Wire

Business Wire
Business Wire
101 California Street, 20th Floor
CA 94111 San Francisco

http://businesswire.com

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Vultr Expands European Footprint with 33rd Cloud Data Center Region in Milan, Italy19.5.2026 17:28:00 CEST | Press release

New region strengthens Vultr's commitment to affordable, high-performance cloud infrastructure and Europe's thriving open source and AI ecosystem Vultr, the world’s largest privately-held cloud infrastructure company, today announces the launch of its 33rd global cloud data center region in Milan, coinciding with AI Week 2026 at Fiera Milano Rho, where over 700 international speakers will gather for Europe's largest AI event. Vultr is a platinum sponsor and is also co-hosting the AI Agent Olympics Hackathon with over 1,000 participants. Milan becomes Vultr's ninth European cloud data center region, joining Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Manchester, Paris, Stockholm, and Warsaw. This launch represents the company's latest expansion of a global network reaching 90% of the world's population within 2–40 milliseconds. Vultr’s cloud data center location will be delivering Vultr’s full-stack AI infrastructure, including Vultr’s flagship cloud compute offering, VX1, in addition to Vult

Global Millennial Capital Closes USD 100 Million IPO Opportunities Fund Focused on AI, Decentralized Financial Infrastructure, and Climate Technologies19.5.2026 17:16:00 CEST | Press release

Global Millennial Capital Ltd. (“GMCL”) today announced the final closing of its inaugural IPO Opportunities Fund at USD 100 million. Raised through a private placement with institutional and professional investors, the fund targets late-stage and special opportunities investments across mid-cap technology companies operating in high-growth sectors, including artificial intelligence, decentralized finance infrastructure, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, enterprise software, and climate technologies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519513523/en/ Global Millennial Capital announces the successful final close of its USD 100 million IPO Opportunities Fund, reinforcing its commitment to investing in high-growth technology companies across artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, and next-generation financial systems. The fund is designed to capitalize on the increasing number of tech

Miro Takes Aim at the Gap Between AI Potential and Organizational Reality19.5.2026 16:00:00 CEST | Press release

At Canvas 26, Miro establishes its AI platform as the connective layer of the modern AI ecosystem — bringing together teams, agents, and the tools they already work in to turn individual AI productivity into organization-wide transformation Miro®, the AI Innovation Workspace for teams, has announced new innovations across its AI platform, reinforcing its position as the collaboration layer where people, context, and agents from every function converge to solve hard problems, make better decisions, and build the right thing faster. Major upgrades to Miro’s agentic AI tools — including Sidekicks and Flows — alongside new Connectors, help customers close the gap between individual AI productivity and organization-wide transformation. AI is reshaping the pace of work, but often teams are not realising the benefits. In many organizations, a gap has emerged between what individuals can now do and what companies can harness. The reason? Collaboration has fractured. Teams have moved from one m

Wolters Kluwer Medi-Span Selected to Provide Personalized Medication Decision Support at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust19.5.2026 15:30:00 CEST | Press release

Roll-out at largest EU cancer center marks first Medi-Span NHS implementation Wolters Kluwer Health has implemented its industry-leading medication decision support (MDS) solution, Medi-Span®, at the world-renowned specialist oncology center, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. “The Christie is recognized globally for its excellence and commitment to delivering exceptional patient care,” says Israel Armstrong, Vice President for Medi-Span International at Wolters Kluwer Health. “We’re proud that our first Medi-Span implementation in the NHS should be with such a prestigious institution. We look forward to more collaborations that help streamline processes further and help clinical teams make the most highly informed decisions.” The Christie is a leading expert in cancer care, research and education and is the largest single-site cancer center in Europe. The Christie treats more than 60,000 patients a year and is the first facility in the UK to be accredited as a comprehensive cancer cen

Torq Acquires Jit to Unleash the First Enterprise AI SOC Context Graph—and Rewrite the Future of SecOps19.5.2026 15:00:00 CEST | Press release

With Jit Acquisition, Torq Catapults Enterprise SOCs Into a New Realm of Detailed Contextual Investigations That Drive Precision Decision-Making Torq, the established agentic security operations leader, today announced the acquisition of Jit, the Boston-based AI Context Graph cybersecurity pioneer. This move marks a dramatic leap forward for the Torq AI SOC Platform by ensuring agentic investigations are precisely informed via organization-specific contextual data. This shift redefines agentic reasoning, moving beyond static facts such as users, devices and their relationships, to prioritize live, dynamic contextual data overlaid on top, including business drivers, and the real-time state of the enterprise. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519044833/en/ Instead of acting on fragmented data or having investigations triggered by a single alert, Torq AI operates with a unified, continuously-updated, contextual

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye