Thiakis is developing products for the treatment of obesity, including the prevention and amelioration of diseases associated with excess weight such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The World Health Organisation estimates that there are more than one billion overweight adults globally, of which at least 300 million are clinically obese. Across the seven major pharmaceutical markets the prevalence of obesity exceeds 114 million individuals, with approximately two thirds of US adults being overweight or obese. Alarmingly, the incidence of obesity in children is rising, leading to associated conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, previously restricted to onset during adulthood.

Obesity costs the US healthcare system in excess of $100 billion per annum, and the economic cost of obesity in the UK has been estimated by the National Audit Office to be £2 billion per annum.

Current options for reducing body weight and treating obesity include:

• Increasing exercise
• Eating behaviour modification
• Drug therapy
• Bariatric surgery

Currently only two drugs are approved for long-term use to treat obesity in the US, orlistat and sibutramine. Sales of both of these products are declining due to limited efficacy and their side-effect profiles. Rimonabant has been approved as a weight-loss therapy in Europe but has yet to be approved by the FDA.

Independent estimates of the potential annual sales for obesity therapies in the seven major pharmaceutical markets predict an increasing market opportunity to between $2 billion and $3 billion by 2013, from a current market of about $500 million. This is driven by the increasing incidence of obesity, a greater recognition of the need to actively treat it as a medical condition, as well as a greater range of treatment options becoming available.

New therapies with improved efficacy and safety profiles are expected to gain significant market share and drive overall expansion of the market for obesity drug therapies.