Novo Nordisk forms cardiometabolic drug discovery accelerator to get to research faster

Novo Nordisk is now tapping into earlier stages of cardiometabolic research by bringing together academic institutions and German drug discovery shop Evotec after it bought a couple of startups and inked multiple biotech collaborations this summer.

Following a chronic kidney disease tie-up in 2020, the Danish Big Pharma and Evotec are coming together again to form a translational drug discovery accelerator dubbed LAB eN². It’s named after the companies’ initials and based out of Novo’s Bio Innovation Hub in Cambridge, MA.

The two companies are pairing up with Harvard and Yale researchers, as well as the teaching hospitals Mass General Brigham and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, to create new therapeutics, Novo’s bio innovation leader Uli Stilz told Endpoints News. The initial focus is on diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases, Stilz said, noting the remit could expand to include rare blood and endocrine disorders.

By tapping into academic research, Novo could get its hands on programs earlier than it would in the traditional biotech partnership model. The lab will work to bring therapeutic candidates toward human testing, and then Novo could potentially license them, Stilz said. If the research leads to broader platform ideas, those could be spun out into new companies, he noted.

He said the innovation hub “basically operates like a biotech.”

Uli Stilz

The partnership, which was disclosed Tuesday, adds to the research pact that Novo signed with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard earlier this month, which Stilz characterized as earlier-stage. That alliance will focus on two programs for subtypes of type 2 diabetes and another for heart scarring, or cardiac fibrosis. It is also “complementary” to the May 2022 collaboration that Novo formed with biotech incubator Flagship Pioneering, Stilz said. That deal could bring up to five cardiometabolic and rare disease programs into Novo’s pipeline.

Evotec is expected to apply its experimental capabilities and preclinical know-how, Stilz said, and Novo will provide “very deep disease area insight” and clinical development expertise. The companies could enlist a “few more partners,” Stilz said, but they want the accelerator to remain tight-knit so it can be “really impactful” and allow for close collaboration. Principal investigators will present their ideas to a “funding board” before moving forward, he said.

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