Corxel CX11 heads for phase 3 as an Amanat SPAC merger brings about 377 million dollars

Corxel CX11, a once daily oral GLP 1 drug, is on its way to the public markets. Corxel Pharmaceuticals, the US arm of the Shanghai based Corxel Group, said on 26 October that it will combine with Amanat Acquisition Corp, a Nasdaq listed SPAC, in a deal that MedCity News puts at about 377 million dollars of fresh cash. The money is meant to fund a global phase 3 obesity programme planned for the first half of 2027. Until that trial starts, the molecule stays at phase 2 on our board.

How the Amanat merger is built

The investor presentation filed with the SEC sets an implied value of 200 million dollars for Corxel US before the new money arrives. Amanat brings about 75 million dollars held in trust, plus roughly 1.7 million in interest, but that sum shrinks if its public shareholders choose to redeem their shares. A private placement targeting 300 million dollars runs alongside the merger. On those numbers the combined company would have a pro forma equity value of about 599 million dollars, with placement investors owning roughly half, existing Corxel holders about a third, and SPAC shareholders and the sponsor the rest. The deal carries a minimum cash condition of 200 million dollars before expenses, and closing is expected in the first half of 2027.

MedCity News lists the investors that have committed to the placement, among them RTW Investments, New Enterprise Associates, SR One, RA Capital Management, Invus and a large healthcare mutual fund it did not name. RTW formed Corxel Group in 2019 to develop cardiometabolic medicines, and the parent is known in China as JiXing. Only the US business goes public; the Chinese side stays outside the listed company. The new name and ticker will be announced before the deal closes. For a pipeline tracker the structure matters for one reason: a SPAC turns committed placement money into cash fairly quickly, while trust money is less certain. A phase 3 obesity programme is expensive, and the size of the cash cushion will decide how many trials Corxel can run at once.

What the CX11 phase 2 obesity trial showed

CX11 is a small molecule that activates the GLP 1 receptor and is taken as a daily tablet, the same broad approach as Lilly's orforglipron. Corxel acquired it in 2024 from Vincentage Pharma, which develops it in China under the code VCT220. In the US phase 2 trial, 250 adults with obesity or overweight were randomised in equal groups to placebo or one of four CX11 cohorts that differed in dose and in how fast the dose was raised. Treatment lasted 36 weeks. At baseline the average participant weighed 98.2 kilograms with a BMI of 35.8, and 67.9 percent were women. At 36 weeks, the four CX11 cohorts lost between 9.3 and 11.5 percent of body weight, against 3.1 percent on placebo.

At 36 weeks, the four CX11 cohorts lost between 9.3 and 11.5 percent of body weight, against 3.1 percent on placebo.

Those figures use the efficacy estimand, which assumes everyone stayed on treatment, so they flatter real use. Tolerability is the point Corxel presses hardest. According to MedCity News, the presentation gives vomiting rates of 12 to 16 percent across the cohorts, which the company calls markedly lower than the rates seen in the mid stage trials of the Novo and Lilly pills; no head to head trial exists. In the Corxel investor presentation, 8.0 percent of treated people stopped for any adverse event against 4.3 percent on placebo, and 5.0 percent stopped for stomach events against 2.2 percent. Liver enzymes above three times the upper limit appeared in 3.5 percent on drug and none on placebo, with no Hy's law cases.

The VCT220 phase 3 trial in China

The larger data set comes from China, where Vincentage runs its own phase 3 programme. That trial randomised 840 people equally to two CX11 cohorts or placebo for 52 weeks. Under the efficacy estimand, weight fell by 12.2 and 12.4 percent on drug against 1.3 percent on placebo, and mean BMI dropped below 28 from a baseline of 31.7. The topline result came in May 2026, and the presentation says a new drug application for weight management went to China's regulator, the NMPA, in July 2026. Corxel holds the rights outside China, so a Chinese approval would not put the drug on the market in the US or Europe. It would, however, add real world safety experience to a database that the company says already covers more than 1,500 people.

The Chinese trial tells a different story on the stomach. Nausea affected 40.7 and 45.7 percent of people in the two drug cohorts against 6.1 percent on placebo, and vomiting 31.8 and 37.9 percent against 3.2 percent. Most events were mild, and only 1.8 percent in each drug cohort stopped because of treatment related side effects. Those vomiting rates sit well above the 12 to 16 percent quoted for the US trial, which may reflect different titration schedules, populations or reporting, and the presentation does not explain the gap. The Chinese participants also had a lower average BMI than those in the pivotal trials of the approved pills. That makes the tolerability claim the main thing a global phase 3 has to confirm, not assume.

Where Corxel CX11 sits among oral GLP 1 drugs

Corxel CX11 enters a field where two pills are already approved in the US. Novo Nordisk sells an oral form of semaglutide for weight loss, and a recent analysis found that uptake of the Wegovy pill briefly matched injection starts within weeks of approval. Lilly's orforglipron, sold as Foundayo, is also heading for Europe after its CHMP opinion last week. Corxel's deck sets its own results beside orforglipron's ATTAIN 1 phase 3 figure of 12.4 percent at 72 weeks, while warning that no head to head trial has been run. MedCity News adds AstraZeneca, Roche, Structure Therapeutics and Viking Therapeutics to the list of companies with oral GLP 1 candidates in clinical development.

The timeline is the next test. The presentation targets a global phase 3 start in the first quarter of 2027, based on a planned end of phase 2 meeting with the FDA and subject to regulators' feedback. MedCity News reports that Corxel already has an agreement with the FDA on the path and design, so the exact state of those talks is worth watching. Corxel aims to file by 2029 and to launch in 2030 or 2031, with compound patents running to 2041. A phase 2 trial in type 2 diabetes and a high dose study in obesity are both due to report in the first half of 2027. Corxel also plans an IND that half for CX12, an oral amylin agonist that has so far been tested only in rats. Our board lists every incretin molecule by stage.

Conclusion

The SPAC deal gives Corxel CX11 the cash to attempt a global phase 3 programme, but it does not move the molecule. Phase 2 weight loss of up to 11.5 percent at 36 weeks is competitive on paper, and the low vomiting rate in the US trial is the company's main claim, one that the Chinese data do not obviously support. The next checkpoints are the FDA meeting, the deal close and the first phase 3 enrolment in 2027. This story is research news, not medical advice.