Takeaways
- Novo Nordisk and private US health technology company Valo Health have reached an agreement to use AI to find treatments for cardiometabolic diseases.
- Valo will receive $60 million in funding advances and could receive up to $2.7 billion based on certain milestones.
- Novo Nordisk said AI shows promise of having a positive impact on drug development.
Danish company Novo Nordisk (NVO) has entered into an agreement with US health technology company Valo Health to use artificial intelligence (AI) to discover and develop treatments for cardiometabolic diseases such as seizures. heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
The two companies will use Valo's Opal computing platform to access real-world patient data, small molecule discovery through AI, and the Biowire platform, which can make heart tissue from samples of human heart cells.
The deal gives privately held Valo an upfront payment and a potential near-term milestone payment of $60 million, with the option to receive milestone payments for up to 11 programs totaling up to $2.7 billion, plus research and development funding and possible royalties.
Alongside the collaborative efforts, Novo Nordisk will license three of Valo's preclinical cardiovascular drug programs.
Marcus Schindler, Novo Nordisk executive vice president and chief scientific officer, explained that AI and machine learning “promise to have a positive impact on drug development, including enabling our vision of leveraging human data sets early in the process.” He said this should lead to a “better understanding of the target biology”.
American certificates of Novo Nordisk's foreign stock (ADR) fell 0.2% on Monday following the news, but has added a third of its value so far this year.
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Source: investopedia.com
