Metsera will use its IPO proceeds to fund the Phase III development of its injectable, ultra-long-acting GLP-1 therapy MET-097i, which last week achieved 11.3% weight loss in a Phase IIa study.
Just nine months after launching, Metsera on Friday unveiled plans to go public in a bid to establish itself as a leading player in the competitive—and highly lucrative—weight-loss market.
The biotech has not yet indicated how much it plans to raise through the initial public offering (IPO), nor has it provided a target closing date for the offering. After completion, Metsera will trade on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker $MTSR.
The bulk of the IPO’s proceeds will help bankroll the company’s planned Phase III trial for its lead obesity candidate MET-097i, an injectable, ultra-long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist that is currently in Phase II trials. Metsera plans to use its existing cash and other assets to fund the mid-stage study through to completion, while leftovers from its IPO raise will go toward working capital and other general operating expenses.
Last week, Metsera unveiled early Phase IIa data for MET-097i, touting 11.3% weight loss after 12 weeks, which reached as high as 20% in some patients. At the time, the biotech called this reduction “clinically meaningful and statistically significant,” noting that it had not detected signs of plateauing—a signal that even stronger effects could potentially be seen with longer dosing.
Of note, pharmacological exposure to MET-097i in the mid-stage study showed that the drug’s concentration increased over a 12-week period, suggesting that it could be given on a monthly basis.
Metsera is running a parallel Phase IIb study of MET-097i, which has already been fully enrolled and is expected to release early data in mid-2025. The biotech is also planning to open other studies of the asset in obesity and type 2 diabetes within the year.
Metsera exited stealth in April 2024 with $290 million in initial funding to advance several oral and injectable weight-loss therapies—an endeavor that has proven to be capital-intensive. The company raised $215 million a few months later, in November, in a bid to help it fund its mission.
In its SEC filing on Friday, Metsera revealed that it had absorbed a net loss of more than $156 million from January to September 2024—more than a fourfold increase from the same period the year prior. Metsera still had almost $191 million in cash and other assets as of the end of September last year.
If these investments play out in Metsera’s favor, the biotech will be able to claim a slice of the lucrative GLP-1 market, which many analysts expect could hit—or even surpass—$100 billion in value by the end of the decade.
