Image Credit: Adobe Stock Images/Santoelia.com
Novo Nordisk and Valo Health have entered into an expanded agreement that revolves around the discovery and development of new treatments for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD).1 The partnership will be powered by artificial intelligence, along with Valo’s human dataset and computation experience.
This partnership dates back to September 2023, via an agreement that called for the development of up to 11 drug programs—mainly revolving around CVD—in which Valo was qualified to receive up to $2.7 billion in milestone payments, along with R&D funding and possible royalty payments.2
Per the terms of the updated deal, Valo can receive an upfront payment, equity investment, and a possible near-term milestone payment, for a total of up to $190 million; beyond that, they company is also eligible to receive milestone payments for nine additional new drug programs, for a total of approximately $4.6 billion, plus R&D funding and potential royalty payments.
The expanded collaboration utilizes the services of Valo’s Opal Computational Platform, alongside capabilities related to human data and genetics with Novo Nordisk’s know-how surrounding CVDs.
“We are very pleased with the progress we have made together with Valo during the first year of our collaboration, and we are excited to expand the scope to put a stronger focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes in addition to cardiovascular disease,” said Marcus Schindler, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of Novo Nordisk. “We have already begun to realize the potential of combining the capabilities of Valo and Novo Nordisk to advance multiple AI-powered, human-centric programs, and we believe this partnership will help Novo Nordisk fulfil our ambition to expand the number of new drug programs we bring to the clinic.”
Thus far, the partnership has resulted in the discovery of several novel targets that have the potential to form the foundation for other cardiometabolic drug programs.
“We are excited to build off our early progress with Novo Nordisk, a global leader in obesity and diabetes therapeutics, especially given the renaissance moment in the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases. This level of investment is a testament to our close partnership in deploying human-centric artificial intelligence to rapidly discover and develop novel cardiovascular and metabolic disease therapeutics,” noted Brian Alexander, CEO of Valo Health and CEO-partner, Flagship Pioneering. “The partnership fully leverages the Opal Computational Platform by seeking to identify novel therapeutic targets in large real-world patient datasets, validate those targets using human preclinical models, and develop therapeutics against those targets with human-centric AI small molecule design.”
References
1. Valo Health and Novo Nordisk expand collaboration to discover and develop novel treatments for cardiometabolic diseases. GlobeNewswire. January 8, 2025. Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/08/3006064/0/en/Valo-Health-and-Novo-Nordisk-expand-collaboration-to-discover-and-develop-novel-treatments-for-cardiometabolic-diseases.html
2. Valo Health and Novo Nordisk to collaborate to discover and develop novel treatments for cardiometabolic diseases using human data and artificial intelligence. Novo Nordisk. September 25, 2023. Accessed January 10, 2025. https://www.novonordisk.com/content/nncorp/global/en/news-and-media/news-and-ir-materials/news-details.html?id=166320