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Novo Nordisk, Flagship to Develop Rare Disease Treatments
The collaboration will provide access to innovation and leverage the technology platforms of multiple biotech companies to create a portfolio of medicines for rare diseases.
Novo Nordisk and Flagship Pioneering recently collaborated to create a portfolio of novel research programs to develop transformation metabolic and rare disease treatments.
The companies will apply Flagship’s innovative bioplatforms to scientific challenges in disease areas within cardiometabolic and rare diseases and initiate research programs based on these. Currently, Flagship’s bioplatform is comprised of 41 companies.
Overall, the collaboration will provide extensive access to innovation and leverage the technology platforms of multiple biotech companies to create a portfolio of medicines across several disease areas.
“We are excited about this new agreement which will give Novo Nordisk access to Flagships’ large and diverse portfolio of companies, representing a wide variety of novel cutting-edge technologies and therapeutic modalities,” Marcus Schindler, PhD, professor, executive vice president, and chief scientific officer of Novo Nordisk, said in the announcement.
“This is a new and innovative way of collaborating, which combines the strength of Flagship Pioneering’s bioplatforms with Novo Nordisk’s cardiometabolic and rare disease expertise,” Schindler continued.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Novo Nordisk will provide funding for initiated research programs and have an exclusive option to license each program. The goal is to initiate three to five research programs within the first three years of the collaboration.
Additionally, Flagship’s Pioneering Medicines and the Novo Nordisk Bio-Innovation Hub will jointly select the most promising product concepts and conduct research programs.
Pioneering Medicines is an initiative within Flagship Pioneering dedicated to conceiving and developing a broad portfolio of life-changing treatments by leveraging and expanding the use of Flagship’s innovations.
Paul Biondi, president of Pioneering Medicines and executive partner of the Flagship Pioneering, stated that the partnership demonstrates the “unique advantages” of Pioneering Medicines model in which the company brings together complementary capabilities and expertise from multiple companies to deliver life-changing medicines to patients.
