Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ olezarsen has Phase 3 results showing the therapy handily beat a placebo at reducing fat levels in the blood due to a rare, inherited metabolic disorder with no FDA-approved drugs. Ionis plans early 2024 submissions for what could become the first medicine it commercializes without a partner.

Sanofi is acquiring rights to a Maze Therapeutics drug candidate for Pompe disease that could give the pharmaceutical giant another option to offer patients who have the rare metabolic disorder. In February, the drug posted positive data from a Phase 1 study.

A Madrigal Pharmaceuticals drug for the fatty liver disease NASH has data from a pivotal clinical trial showing improvements in the organ. Based on those results, which sent Madrigal’s stock price soaring more than 200%, the biotech is planning to seek what could become the first regulatory approval of a therapy for this metabolic disorder.

Novo Nordisk is acquiring global rights to a Ventus Therapeutics drug candidate with potential applications in cardiometabolic disorders such as NASH and chronic kidney disease. The small molecule blocks a protein that has become an attractive target for big pharmaceutical companies, such as Roche and Novartis.

Rivus Pharmaceuticals’ Series B round will finance ongoing clinical development of its lead drug, a pill that targets mitochondria to increase caloric expenditure. CEO Allen Cunningham said the new cash comes on the heels of results from a mid-stage obesity study showed treatment with the Rivus drug led to fat loss while also preserving skeletal muscle.

Harvard University spinout GRO Biosciences has technology offering the potential for protein therapies that are safer and more effective than currently available biologic drugs. The startup’s research is now backed by $25 million, a Series A financing round whose investors include the venture arm of Bayer.

ShouTi Pharmaceuticals, a startup that brings computational techniques to drug discovery, has raised $100 million in Series B financing. The clinical-stage biotech designs small molecules intended to do the work of biologic and peptide drugs.

Takeda Pharmaceutical is partnering with startup Immusoft in a research alliance aiming to develop B cell therapies that cross the blood-brain barrier to treat rare neurometabolic disorders. Depending on the progress of the research, Takeda could pay its new partner more than $900 million.

Cross-border biotech Anji Pharma closed $70 million in Series B funding to advance a drug pipeline that includes metabolic and cancer drugs. The biotech’s business model of finding promising drugs and forming subsidiaries to develop them is similar to approaches taken by Roivant Sciences and BridgeBio Pharma, among others.

Atavistik Bio is one of several companies discovering and developing drugs that work by allostery, binding to less obvious sites of a target protein. Acting CEO John Josey said the startup aims to stand apart with its focus on understanding metabolic interactions, a path less trodden by others in allosteric drug discovery.