Can wearable drug delivery patches enable obese patients to lose 15% of their body weight in as little as two months? That is the question EOFlow and Zihipp are aiming to answer by creating joint venture SanPlena.
The joint venture starts life with EOFlow's wearable drug delivery platform and novel peptide derivatives from Zihipp. To date, the delivery system, branded EOPatch, has mainly been used to deliver insulin. In that context, EOFlow pitches the patch, which is applied twice a week, as a thinner and narrower product than other insulin pumps. EOFlow received a CE mark for the patch last year.
Partnering with Zihipp positions EOFlow to expand into other indications. Zihipp has worked in recent years on novel peptide derivatives developed by Stephen Bloom’s lab at Imperial College London. Bloom was behind the gut hormone analog that enabled Thiakis to land a takeover from Wyeth in 2008.
Typically, daily or weekly injections are used to administer such molecules. However, EOFlow and Zihipp see benefits to using wearable patches, pointing to the potential to tailor drug dosing to the metabolism of each patient—thereby accelerating weight loss and reducing side effects—to make their case.
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EOFlow and Zihipp are open about what they want to achieve. The aim is to deliver 10% to 15% weight loss after two to three months of treatment with the combination product.
Other groups have already shown such weight loss is possible. Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide has achieved weight loss in the 10% to 15% range in late-phase clinical trials, although those declines were seen in studies that tracked patients for 10 months. SanPlena is aiming to trigger similar weight reductions to tirzepatide in less than one third of the time.