Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Pfizer has sealed an up to $7.3bn takeover of weight-loss drug developer Metsera in the biggest deal yet by a large pharmaceutical group trying to gain a foothold in the lucrative market.
As part of the deal, Pfizer will pay Metsera $47.50 in cash per share, for an enterprise value of $4.9bn. If three specific clinical trial milestones are met, Metsera shareholders will receive a further $22.50 a share, meaning the transaction could be worth up to $7.3bn.
The deal, the biggest example to date of a drugmaker buying an experimental weight-loss treatment, represents a sizeable premium to Metsera’s Friday closing price of $33.32 in New York. Pfizer’s shares rose by 1.7 per cent in pre-market trading, while Metsera’s stock jumped by nearly 60 per cent.
The acquisition, which was first reported by the Financial Times, was announced on Monday. It offers Pfizer a shot at competing in the battle to develop next-generation anti-obesity drugs after the treatment it was developing in-house, danuglipron, flopped in clinical trials this year.
Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said the deal “propels Pfizer into this key therapeutic area”. “Obesity is a large and growing space with over 200 health conditions associated with it,” he added.
Metsera, which went public this year in one of the biggest biotech listings of 2025, is among a host of companies researching next-generation weight-loss treatments to try to muscle in on the dominance of Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. Both of the existing treatments have been associated with side effects, such as muscle wasting.
Metsera has four early and mid-stage clinical trials in obesity, which differ from existing treatments by using different biological mechanisms or dosing schedules. Whit Bernard, chief executive of Metsera, said the treatments could “transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people”.
Several large pharmaceutical groups showed interest in Metsera in a competitive auction process that went down to the wire, two people familiar with the situation said. Analysts project the obesity drug market could be worth $95bn a year in peak sales.
Under the leadership of Bourla, Pfizer is seeking to boost the company’s share price. Its shares are down more than half from their 2021 peak during the pandemic, when the company produced a blockbuster vaccine. The stock closed at just over $24 on Friday, giving it a market value of $136bn.
In 2023, Pfizer paid $43bn for cancer-focused biotech Seagen, betting its future on a promising new oncology treatment, known as antibody drug conjugates, but investors remain unconvinced.
Swiss pharma group Roche has previously been the most aggressive dealmaker, paying up $5.3bn to partner with Danish obesity biotech Zealand Pharma and up to $3.1bn to acquire Carmot Therapeutics.
Metsera’s lead drug MET-097i resulted in 11.3 per cent body mass reduction after 12 weeks in a phase-two trial with limited side-effects. The company is also testing the drug as a long-acting, monthly injection.
The biotech is also researching treatments based on another hormone amylin in early-stage trials. Further clinical data is expected by the end of this year. Scientists believe amylin could be an effective appetite suppressant without causing the muscle loss associated with the current GLP-1 treatments. Metsera also has a weight-loss pill in its pipeline.
In recent weeks, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have published clinical data for pill versions of their obesity drugs.
Citigroup and Wachtell Lipton advised Pfizer on the transaction, while Metsera was advised by Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim Securities, Allen & Company and Paul, Weiss.
