10104244Confirmation of therapeutic benefit of a novel metabolic disease treatment in female subjectsClosedLaunchpadInnovate UKDia Beta Labs (DBL) is a **Northern-Ireland based biotech company** committed to tackling the worsening metabolic disease crisis sweeping the globe, driven by uncurbed prevalence of obesity and diabetes. DBL has uncovered a **novel disease target** in metabolic disease which is effectively exploited by our current lead molecule, DBL002\. Our data to date indicates our lead molecule DBL002 has the potential to **transform patient outcomes over current standards of care**. In particular, we have found its use **favours fat loss over muscle loss**, a major advantage. This occurs through direct actions on brown fat and indirectly through reduction of appetite and greater disposal of blood glucose. These effects are because our novel, previously unexploited receptor of interest, is expressed in multiple metabolic tissues such as appetite-regulating hypothalamic centres of the brain, insulin-producing beta-cells of the pancreas, gut motility-regulating cells of the intestine and within fat itself. The effects of DBL002 **improve the quality of weight loss obtained compared to currently available agents** which do not discriminate between muscle or fat loss.In addition to the concern around muscle loss, currently available anti-obesity medications, namely GLP-1 analogues, cause often severe gastrointestinal side-effects, culminating in **discontinuation of these therapeutics in 70% of patients by 24-months**. **No suitable alternative treatment exists presently**. Thus, there is **considerable need** for new effective and well tolerated therapeutics for obesity management. This project **builds upon our success in validating our novel target**, and its effective exploitation through development of DBL002, our current lead. Whilst we have built a strong commercial data package, which has been of considerable interest to potential Pharma partners, our **data to date has focused on effects in male rodents only**. Indeed, a common flaw in preclinical research at present is the favoured use of male animals, owing to a perceived increase of variance in female animals, which is now recognised by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). Thus, we now seek to confirm that our **exciting anti-obesity effects are maintained in females** and seek to pre-empt the requirement for gender-balanced studies at earlier stages of development. This further validates our exciting findings to date and i**mproves commercialisation potential for a first-in-class agent for metabolic disease** management. DBL will leverage our existing relationships with Pharma, such as Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, to inform experimental design and to aid commercialisation strategies throughout this project.