China-based PegBio Co., Ltd. (HKEX: 2565) and San Jose, California-based Rani Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: RANI) announced a research and development collaboration to apply Rani’s RaniPill oral biologics delivery platform to multiple obesity and metabolic disease drug candidates from PegBio’s pipeline, with the goal of advancing the most promising programs into clinical development outside China. The arrangement is structured as a memorandum of understanding with a three-year term, covering oral formulation screening and preclinical development across PegBio’s portfolio of injectable metabolic candidates.
PegBio will contribute an undisclosed set of metabolic disease candidates described as multi-target metabolic modulator molecules, long-acting platform assets, and other programs. Rani contributes the RaniPill platform, an ingestible capsule technology that deploys a miniaturized needle mechanism within the small intestine to deliver biologics directly into the intestinal wall, bypassing gastrointestinal degradation that prevents large molecules from surviving oral administration. The platform has been evaluated in multiple preclinical and clinical studies, including first-in-human data published in Nature in 2025 demonstrating successful oral delivery of the peptide biologic octreotide with measurable systemic pharmacokinetics. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal extends Rani’s established pattern of applying the RaniPill platform to obesity and metabolic disease candidates through external partnerships. In January 2026, Rani initiated a Phase I clinical trial of RT-114, an oral GLP-1/GLP-2 dual agonist containing South Korea-based ProGen Co., Ltd.’s PG-102, under a 50/50 cost and revenue share collaboration signed in June 2024. In October 2025, Rani entered a collaboration and license agreement with Japan-based Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. valued at up to USD 1.085 billion, covering oral formulation development of a rare disease antibody and additional immunology programs. The PegBio MOU adds a multi-candidate metabolic pipeline to Rani’s obesity franchise, which also includes preclinical studies of oral semaglutide formulations. For PegBio, whose approved marketed product is visepegenatide injection, a long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist, the collaboration provides a potential second development pathway that extends existing injectable molecules into oral formulations without requiring structural modification of the drug candidates themselves.
The collaboration reflects continued industry interest in oral delivery technologies for biologics, particularly in obesity and metabolic disease. Unlike absorption-enhancing approaches or oral small molecules, Rani’s platform uses a capsule that injects biologics into the intestinal wall, enabling delivery of larger molecules that would otherwise require injection.
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