Partnership targets obesity and diabetes
Novo Nordisk and Vivtex Corporation announced a strategic collaboration to develop next-generation oral biologic therapies aimed at treating obesity, diabetes and related metabolic conditions.
Under the agreement, Vivtex will grant Novo Nordisk licenses to selected oral drug-delivery technologies. In return, Vivtex is eligible for upfront payments, research funding and milestone-based compensation that could total up to 2.1 billion US dollars, along with tiered royalties on future commercial sales.
Expanding leadership in oral peptide innovation
Brian Vandahl, senior vice president of Therapeutics Discovery at Novo Nordisk, highlighted the company’s longstanding focus on protein and peptide engineering, including oral formulations.
“Novo Nordisk has been at the forefront of innovation in protein and peptide engineering for several decades, and not least within oral formulation of peptides. We launched the first-ever oral biologic more than five years ago and have recently launched the world’s first oral biologic for obesity,” he said. “We continue to push the boundaries of science through both internal and external innovation to fulfil our mission of treating millions more people living with obesity and diabetes and their associated comorbidities.”
Addressing a longstanding delivery challenge
Biologic drugs are typically administered by injection because large molecules such as peptides and proteins are degraded or poorly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. The collaboration aims to overcome these barriers and enable reliable oral delivery of biologic drug candidates.
Vivtex’s CEO and co-founder Thomas von Erlach emphasized the complexity of the task. “Making biologics oral has been one of the most difficult challenges in drug delivery,” he said. “Vivtex was founded to systematically solve this problem by integrating high-throughput experimentation with computational and AI-enabled analytics. Partnering with Novo Nordisk allows us to apply our platform across important metabolic disease areas, with the goal of enabling oral therapies that would otherwise require injection.”
Technology integration and commercialization path
Vivtex’s platform integrates proprietary gastrointestinal screening assays, formulation technologies and computational simulation tools enhanced by artificial intelligence. The objective is to improve oral bioavailability and ensure consistent clinical performance.
Following the research phase and identification of viable formulations, Novo Nordisk will take over responsibility for global development, regulatory approvals, manufacturing and commercialization of any products arising from the collaboration.
