Sanofi-Returned Drug Nears Obesity Treatment Launch as Hanmi Licenses New Candidate for $2.3 Billion

A drug once returned by Sanofi is now nearing commercialization in South Korea as an obesity treatment, six years after the French pharmaceutical company abandoned its development plan.

The drug, efpeglenatide, was returned to Hanmi Pharmaceutical in 2020. Sanofi had begun changing its development strategy in late 2019, after CEO Paul Hudson announced a new research and development plan in December of that year. The company said it would concentrate investment on areas such as cancer and immune diseases, which it viewed as having strong growth potential, while stopping new research in diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

That strategy included efpeglenatide. After Sanofi reduced its priorities in diabetes and cardiovascular research and gave up plans to launch the drug itself, the global pharmaceutical market expanded rapidly around GLP-1 obesity treatments.

Hanmi restarted development after receiving efpeglenatide back. It has also licensed a separate, next-generation obesity-drug candidate to Genentech in a deal valued at up to $2.3 billion, or about 3.2 trillion won.