Zealand Pharma partners Shanghai-based OTR Therapeutics in discovery deal focused on obesity and metabolic disease.
Danish biotech Zealand Pharma has signed a discovery and development agreement with Shanghai-based OTR Therapeutics, committing at least $20 million upfront to identify new drug targets for metabolic diseases. The collaboration could expand to $30 million in upfront payments under certain conditions, with OTR also eligible for up to $2.5 billion in development and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties on future sales.
Under the terms, OTR will apply its discovery platform to identify multiple novel metabolic targets and advance them through preclinical development. Zealand is expected to take over once the programs enter the clinic, positioning the biotech to feed new assets into its mid- and late-stage pipeline.
The deal lands as Zealand sharpens its ambitions in obesity and metabolic disease, areas that have become increasingly crowded but remain commercially and clinically high-stakes.
The partnership with OTR coincides with Zealand’s unveiling of its new corporate strategy, dubbed “Metabolic Frontier 2030.” The plan sets out an ambition to become what the company calls a ‘generational biotech leader’ in obesity and metabolic diseases [1].
By 2030, Zealand aims to deliver five product launches and expand its clinical pipeline to more than 10 active programs. The strategy also includes plans to build a new research site in the US, underscoring the company’s intent to scale discovery alongside development.
“By establishing a cutting-edge Boston research site, we are putting advanced automation and AI to work alongside more than 25 years of unmatched peptide expertise to accelerate drug discovery and development, while expanding our molecule-making toolbox,” CEO Adam Steensberg said in a release.
Zealand’s leadership has been vocal about recalibrating how success is defined in obesity drug development. Steensberg said the company was ready to increase its dealmaking with smaller biotechs and urged the industry to move away from what he described as the “weight loss Olympics.”
Rather than competing solely on headline weight-loss percentages, he argued for a more nuanced approach focused on improving tolerability, durability of effect, and broader metabolic health outcomes. That philosophy appears to be reflected in Zealand’s pipeline choices and its interest in earlier-stage discovery partnerships, such as the one with OTR.
While investing in future programs, Zealand is also approaching a pivotal period for its existing pipeline. Next year, the company expects Phase 2 data for petrelintide, an amylin analog partnered with Roche, in patients who are overweight or obese [2].
Amylin analogs work differently from GLP-1 drugs. Rather than primarily slowing gastric emptying or increasing insulin secretion, they enhance feelings of fullness by restoring sensitivity to leptin, a hormone involved in satiety.
Zealand says this mechanism could translate into better tolerability and a greater ability to preserve muscle mass compared with currently available therapies, an issue that has drawn increasing attention as obesity treatments move into broader populations.
In parallel, Zealand is awaiting Phase 3 data for survodutide, a GLP-1/glucagon receptor dual agonist partnered with German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim.
The trial is testing the drug in overweight or obese patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a severe liver condition with no approved pharmacological treatments to date.
Founded in March, OTR Therapeutics announced earlier this month that it had raised $100 million, a rapid infusion of capital that reflects growing interest in cross-border biotech models [3]. The company aims to leverage the speed and flexibility of clinical development processes in China while advancing a mix of assets sourced both domestically and internationally.
Although cardiometabolic disease is a core focus, OTR is also developing programs in oncology, immunology and inflammation. Its approach has already attracted attention from several large pharmaceutical companies, positioning it as a potentially influential discovery partner rather than a single-asset startup.
For Zealand, the collaboration offers access to new biology and a scalable discovery engine at a time when competition in metabolic disease is intensifying. As the company balances near-term clinical milestones with longer-term pipeline building, the OTR deal highlights how partnerships are becoming central to sustaining momentum beyond the current wave of obesity drugs.
[1] https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/12/11/3203618/0/en/Zealand-Pharma-outlines-Metabolic-Frontier-2030-strategy-to-become-a-generational-biotech-leader-in-obesity-and-metabolic-health.html
[2] https://www.zealandpharma.com/pipeline/petrelintide/
[3] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otr-therapeutics-raises-100-million-in-series-a-financing-to-advance-early-innovation-into-global-transformative-therapies-302633256.html
