Novo collaboration9 Nov 2019 18:31
Almost 12 months since the collaboration kicked off it would be great for shareholders if we got a 12 month update....
The collaboration will support the early target discovery research now underway at Novo’s R&D site in Oxford. Novo committed to investing £115 million ($146 million) into the site over a 10-year period at the start of 2017. The site is located near to the University of Oxford’s Target Discovery Institute, giving Novo a source of starting points for drugs, and the e-therapeutics deal could complement this resource.
Under the terms of the agreement, Novo will reimburse e-therapeutics for its contributions to the collaboration and get an option to license any relevant IP generated by the project. The commercial terms of future licensing agreements will be mutually decided down the line, if required.
The outlay furthers Novo’s attempts to position itself for growth in the face of a challenging market for its core diabetes franchise. Some of the earlier attempts sought to move Novo beyond diabetes, but the e-therapeutics collaboration is intended to strengthen the Danish drugmaker’s position in its therapeutic heartland.
With e-therapeutics specializing in multitarget approaches, the deal echoes the way some of Novo’s rivals are trying to gain an edge in the diabetes sector. In May 2017, Sanofi tasked Exscientia with identifying pairs of targets involved in glucose control, NASH, weight management and other areas relevant to diabetics, plus generating bispecific small molecules capable of hitting both of them.
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