Novo has agreed to pay up to $2.6bn to license an experimental weight-loss pill from China's Hengrui Pharma as the Danish pharmaceuticals group seeks to shore up its position in the oral obesity drug market. Novo said on Tuesday it was paying $300mn upfront to acquire the international rights for the pill, which could potentially be taken just once a week in contrast to Novo's daily Wegovy tablet. Hengrui's drug HRS-1596 is a dual-receptor agonist that has been cleared to begin early-stage clinical trials in China for type 2 diabetes and weight loss. Novo will acquire the rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise the drug globally outside mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

The deal is Novo's second since its investor day last week, when its pledges to boost growth with new drugs fell flat. The group, which is trying to regain ground lost to rival Eli Lilly in the obesity drug market, announced on Thursday it had agreed to license a technology from Sweden's Nanexa that could allow patients to take one weight-loss injection every few months. The deal is the Danish drugmaker's latest attempt to boost its pipeline as it prepares to lose exclusivity for its blockbuster semaglutide-based treatments Wegovy and Ozempic in Europe and the US in the early 2030s.

Last week the company said its deal with Nanexa would give Novo the exclusive rights to its Pharma Shell technology for certain obesity treatments, potentially allowing for weight-loss injections to be administered monthly or quarterly. Analysts said a weekly pill would be a significant entrant to the market. "The program is too early to meaningfully impact the near-term outlook, but once-weekly oral dosing could provide some longer-term differentiation," Evan Seigerman, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note.