Pfizer hits Novo Nordisk and Metsera with lawsuit amid bidding battle
Pfizer has adopted by means of on its threats, submitting a lawsuit in opposition to each Metsera and Novo Nordisk throughout a M&A bidding battle for the obesity-focused biotech.
This follows Novo Nordisk’s last-minute interception of Pfizer’s September 2025 acquisition deal for the New York-based biotech, which may see Pfizer pay as much as $7.3bn for the rights to Metsera.
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By means of its counter-offer, Novo Nordisk trumped this worth, providing Metsera as much as $9bn, which the biotech thought-about a “superior firm proposal”.
The lawsuit, filed within the Delaware Court docket of Chancery, alleges that Novo Nordisk and Metsera breached the contractual merger settlement, claiming “breach of contract, breach of fiduciary responsibility, and tortious interference”.
Pfizer made extra claims in opposition to Novo Nordisk in its lawsuit announcement, alleging that the Danish pharma’s acquisition provide of Metsera is an “unlawful try by an organization with a dominant market place to suppress competitors” within the weight problems area, as Novo Nordisk at the moment holds a dominant market place on this section.
Pfizer refuted Metsera’s claims that Novo Nordisk’s proposal was superior, noting that it “can not qualify as superior” relative to its take care of Metsera underneath the merger settlement. In Pfizer’s eyes, it’s because Novo Nordisk’s transaction is unlikely to be accomplished because of the regulatory threat related to it.
In an announcement launched on 31 October, Metsera famous that it “disagrees with the allegations in Pfizer’s criticism”, including that the corporate will tackle them in courtroom.
Metsera’s future up within the air
Regardless of its souring sentiments towards the weight problems biotech, Pfizer plans to soldier on with the acquisition, which might be prepared to finish following a Metsera stockholder assembly on 13 November.
In an try to dam any additional discourse on this matter, Pfizer has additionally filed a movement with the Court docket of Chancery to request a short lived restraining order on Metsera to dam the biotech from terminating the merger settlement, which Pfizer famous would give it “time to be heard on this necessary matter”.
Regardless of Novo Nordisk’s try to intercept Pfizer’s take care of Metsera, it seems that the latter might prevail, because the US Federal Commerce Fee granted early termination of the ready interval to the New York pharma’s pending acquisition.
Weight problems market spikes huge pharma curiosity
This back-and-forth comes at a time when Pfizer is eager to make its title within the metabolic well being sector, which GlobalData forecasts will probably be price $206.5bn in 2031 – up from $12.3bn in 2021.
GlobalData is the mother or father firm of Pharmaceutical Know-how.
At the moment, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) are persistently delivering excessive gross sales efficiency, with Eli Lilly’s star sort 2 diabetes and weight problems belongings, Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide), bringing in $6.5bn and $3.6bn in Q3 alone – surpassing analyst expectations and elevating the corporate’s projected income ceiling for this monetary 12 months.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have been the 2 key gamers on this section, preventing for market share with their best-selling injectable GLP-1RAs, Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound.
Nevertheless, Pfizer has been seeking to bounce on the weight problems bandwagon, having developed its personal belongings to compete with each Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s marketed therapies.
Regardless of its efforts to develop an oral GLP-1RA, Pfizer needed to terminate the event programme for its weight problems capsule, danuglipron, after the treatment precipitated a drug-induced liver damage in a Section IIa trial.
If Pfizer’s acquisition of Metsera is accomplished, the large pharma will declare Metsera’s vary of weight problems belongings, together with month-to-month GLP-1RA, MET-097i, which not too long ago posted weight lack of 14.1% in a Section IIb trial.
Alongside its next-generation injectable portfolio, Metsera may provide Pfizer one other probability at commercialising an oral weight problems drug, as the corporate’s MET-224o capsule is at the moment in Section I trials.
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