|
Regeneron Races to GLP-1s, Titanium Hearts, and Breastfeeding vs. ASCVD
June 5, 2025
|
|
|
|
|
Together with
|
|
|
|
“If Hansoh achieves every. single. penny of the biobucks in this deal after the paltry $80M up front, their value would *still* be less than the current $VKTX enterprise value.”
|
|
Adam May, MD on the economics of Hansoh and Regeneron’s new deal.
|
|
|
Cardiology Pharmaceuticals
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just a few weeks after the full results of SURMOUNT-5 crowned Eli Lilly’s GLP-1/GIP tirzepatide king of the GLP-1s, Regeneron announced it will pay Hansoh Pharma $80M upfront and up to $1.93B in milestone payments for its Phase 3-stage GLP-1/GIP drug, HS-20094.
- Up until now, the weight loss conversation was a debate between Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 semaglutide and Lilly’s GLP-1/GIP tirzepatide, with research broadly favoring the latter.
- While Regeneron is far from the first to buy a GLP-1 pipeline, it’s bullish on Hansoh’s formula due to its testing in China.
- The eventual $2B price tag sounds like a lot, but this $80M up-front deal is low-risk compared to others like Roche’s $2.7B upfront acquisition of Carmot for its GLP-1.
It’s the early testing edge that has Regeneron excited about Hansoh’s HS-20094, since the drug has already been studied in over 1k patients, leading Regeneron to claim it has a “potentially similar profile” to Lilly’s popular GLP-1/GIP agonist.
- Hansoh is currently running both a phase 2b study of the drug in diabetes and a phase 3 trial in obesity in its home territory of China.
- However, it’s worth noting that obesity in China and obesity in the U.S. are not the same, partially due to China’s ethnic homogeneity and vastly different food culture.
Regeneron isn’t just buying a gold ticket to the GLP-1 show, as it also intends to use Hansoh’s GLP-1/GIP to study combinations with its proprietary drugs and candidates for addressing muscle loss and other obesity comorbidities like CVD and T2D.
- For example, Regeneron recently showed combining its antibody trevogrumab with semaglutide helped preserve lean mass while increasing fat mass loss.
- Swiss pharma giant Roche is also hoping it can combine the GLP-1 it acquired through buying Carmot with its own antibody for reducing muscle loss during weight loss.
The Takeaway
While both Novo and Lilly have multi-year regulatory head-starts and are now rapidly becoming part of the zeitgeist around treating obesity, Regeneron’s angle of addressing muscle loss could help set it apart from other GLP-1 hopefuls and even incumbents by leading to improved long-term outcomes.
|
|
Vista AI Grows CMR Volume
Are your patients waiting weeks or months for cardiac MRIs? See Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s real-world results showing how Vista AI’s software for automated MRI scanning led to 50% more scan slots, without adding more scanners or staff.
|
|
Discover Innovation in Intervention
Explore how the AGENT™ Drug-Coated Balloon from Boston Scientific is advancing U.S.-based treatment options for patients with coronary artery disease. Rx Only. (Sponsored by Boston Scientific)
|
|
A Better Way to Coordinate Post-Stroke Care
Think your EHR messaging system might be holding back your post-stroke care? See how UC San Diego Medical Center streamlined its neuro and EP teams’ post-stroke workflow with Viz Connect, and the impact it had on cardiac monitor placements in inpatient and outpatient settings.
|
|
- A Heart of Titanium: BiVACOR received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its titanium Total Artificial Heart (TAH). The new designation supports the TAH as a bridge to transplant for adults with severe heart failure who aren’t eligible for other treatments, like LVADs. Part of the TAH’s design uses magnetic levitation to suspend a single dual-sided rotor that mimics the natural heartbeat without valves. So far, the TAH system has positive EFS results to back it up, with an expanded trial adding 15 more patients later this year.
- Breastfeeding and Future ASCVD: A new study suggests breastfeeding might lower a woman’s long-term ASCVD risk, especially if gestational diabetes (GDM) occurs. Analyzing the HAPO study, researchers found that 10–14 years after delivery, women who breastfed faced lower estimated ASCVD risk over the next 10 years (2.3% vs 2.5%) and 30 years (6.2% vs 6.9%). Breastfeeding was even more beneficial for women with GDM, and led to significantly lower 30-year ASCVD risk (β: −1.33 vs. β: −0.25).
- Elixir’s Bioadaptor Blooms: Elixir Medical announced positive three-year results from its BIOADAPTOR RCT that compared its DynamX Coronary Bioadaptor System to Medtronic’s Resolute Onyx Drug-Eluting Stent. Among 445 patients randomized to receive either the Bioadaptor or Onyx, the Bioadaptor group experienced a lower total lesion failure rate (2.7% vs. 7.2%) and lower CV mortality (0.5% vs. 3.2%). Another major difference was the Bioadaptor group’s significantly lower TLF rate in hemodynamically critical left anterior descending lesions (2.7% vs. 10.6%).
- Absorbent CytoSorb! CytoSorbents presented a new contemporary real-world data analysis highlighting that its CytoSorb technology significantly reduces the severity of bleeding in urgent CABG patients on ticagrelor. The analysis compared two patient populations undergoing urgent CABG surgery on ticagrelor before completing the guideline-recommended 3-day washout period and found that CytoSorb reduced the rate of severe bleeding (10.7% vs. 33%), large transfusion events (6% vs. 27%), and re-operations to control bleeding (4% vs. 9.6%).
- Inclisiran in Recent ACS: Many ACS patients don’t meet guideline-directed LDL-C goals but new research suggests Novartis’ inclisiran paired with usual care could help change that. The VICTORION-INCEPTION Phase 3b trial randomized 400 patients with recent ACS to receive either inclisiran plus usual care or usual care alone and found that significantly more patients achieved LDL-C < 70 mg/dL after 330 days on inclisiran (66.7% vs 28.1%).
- Lifestyle and CCD: Heart disease is largely preventable and a new JACC study revealed exactly which lifestyle traits could be associated with cardiac conduction disease (CCD). Researchers in China followed 89k participants for 14 years on average and found that excessive alcohol consumption, high sedentary behavior, and longer sleep duration led to higher CCD risk (aHRs: 1.16 , 1.12, and 1.32 respectively).
- Polygenic PAD Prediction: A new JAMA study suggests polygenic risk scores (PRS) could help predict PAD and major adverse limb events. The study analyzed 400k individuals across three databases and assigned them to risk categories based on their genetic background, leading to an odds ratio of 1.68 for the top 20% of PRS-PAD scores compared to the rest of the population. Since PAD is heritable, researchers suggest examining the genetic background of a patient could help detect PAD earlier and improve outcomes.
- Big Muscles, Bigger Risks: Although bodybuilding continues growing in popularity, a new EHJ study suggests serious risks to the discipline. Researchers examined over 20k athletes competing in 730 bodybuilding events (both professional and amateur) and found the incidence of sudden cardiac death was 32.83 cases per 100k athlete-years. SCD autopsies showed cardiomegaly and ventricular hypertrophy and found that professional bodybuilders were at a much higher risk of SCD than amateurs (HR: 5.23), likely due to the prevalence of anabolic steroids at the professional level.
- FDA Rolls Out Elsa AI: The FDA rolled out its AI technology for helping the agency review medical product submissions. Called Elsa and first announced in May, the FDA said the generative AI platform was designed to free up scientific reviewers by accelerating clinical protocol reviews, shortening the time needed for scientific evaluations, and identifying high-priority inspection targets. But an article in STAT quoted FDA employees as saying Elsa’s rollout was “rushed” and that the agency was “overinflating its capabilities.”
- Private Practice Shift: The number of physicians working in private practices in the U.S. continues its steady decline. A new report from the AMA found that the share of private-practice physicians fell 18% from 2012 to 2024 (60% to 42%). Driving the trend are factors like costly resources, burdensome regulations, and declining reimbursement (Medicare payments down 33% over 25 years). About 31% of cardiologists still work in private practices, which is a good bit lower than similarly paying specialties like orthopedic surgery (54%) and radiology (50%).
- Reflow’s De Novo Clearance: Reflow Medical received De Novo clearance from the FDA for its Spur Peripheral Retrievable Stent System that treats both new and restenotic lesions following predilatation in patients with infrapopliteal arterial disease. The Spur System features a self-expanding stent with a dilatation balloon catheter for lesion penetration and treatment through a series of expandable spikes. The De Novo clearance is supported by the recent DEEPER REVEAL clinical trial that found the Spur Stent System achieved a 99.2% technical success rate.
|
|
Structured Reporting Cuts Late Charges
Structured reporting is often associated with efficiency improvements, but its ability to reduce errors and improve billing accuracy can deliver benefits across a cardiovascular service line. See how Baystate Medical Center’s transition to structured cardiology reporting with Optum helped them reduce unsigned charges by 79%.
|
|
Heartflow Roadmap Analysis For Efficient Care
As Coronary CT scan volumes increase, your entire reading team needs to deliver efficient and consistent reads. Good thing Heartflow’s Roadmap Analysis can help you maintain accuracy and increase CCTA read speeds by up to 25%, with even level 3 readers seeing real efficiency benefits.
|
|
Identify and Treat Cardiovascular Disease
Complex care pathways make getting patients to the next step a challenge. See how Tempus Next, an AI enabled care pathway platform, helps providers identify and reduce under treatment in cardiovascular disease by adding an intelligent layer onto their routinely generated EHR data.
|
|
- PIA’s Post-Processing Solution: Advanced cardiac imaging often calls for a time-consuming post-processing step, requiring costly software, hardware, and training. See how PIA provides this post-processing at lower cost, improved consistency, and greater efficiency.
- Revolutionize Your Cardiac CT Workflow — See It LIVE at SCCT 2025! Be among the first to experience next-gen CV imaging at Booth #315 during SCCT 2025. Sign up now to find out how Circle CVI’s software enables lightning-fast LAAC, TAVR, and TMVR workflows while providing more accurate heart function insights, and clinician-controlled plaque quantification.
- Left Ventricular Devices Have Received Level 1A Recommendation: Patients on long-term inotrope support have a median survival of under a year.
- Us2.ai and Fujifilm Automate CVUS: Fujifilm Healthcare Americas and Us2.ai have partnered to equip the LISENDO 880 cardiovascular ultrasound system with an AI-driven clinical workflow solution. Read more about how Us2.ai fully automates the LISENDO 880’s echocardiogram analysis and reporting.
- Monebo’s Approach to Cardiac Health Monitoring: The heart works day and night, so your cardiac monitoring software should too. Learn about how Monebo’s latest innovation superimposes long-term monitoring results onto a 24-hour circadian cycle scale, creating a comprehensive map of circadian variations.
- Explore Vitrea Advanced Visualization: Discover Canon Medical Healthcare IT’s suite of advanced imaging workflows designed to increase efficiency in cardiovascular imaging, and facilitate the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. These cutting-edge tools support the delivery of faster, more accurate care while integrating seamlessly into clinical workflow
- Cut Waste with GE HealthCare’s Inventory Management: Want to make your hospital’s inventory practices more efficient? Tune in to this webinar on how GE HealthCare’s data-driven insights can optimize inventory management and reduce cardiac procedure times by 30-45 minutes.
- Explore the latest clinical evidence: SMART Trial 2-year results are in! Evolut™ TAVR maintains superior valve performance through two years in small annulus patients. Dive into the key findings from the latest SMART Trial results. View now!
- Merge and Duly Health Streamline Cardiology Reporting: Over the last 10 years, Dr. Sujith Kalathiveetil of Duly Health and Care has seen a significant evolution in cardiovascular imaging and experienced a similar evolution with Merge’s cardiology solutions. See how Merge Cardio has helped make cardiology reporting more consistent, accurate, and easier to obtain for Dr. Kalathiveetil and his colleagues.
|
|
|
|
|
