Following the launch of its Wegovy (semaglutide) pill at the beginning of the year, Novo Nordisk is committing as much as $2.1 billion to next-gen delivery mechanisms for its metabolic portfolio.
The new technology comes from Vivtex, a drug delivery specialist that spun out of the MIT lab of biotech legend Robert Langer in 2018. Vivtex will receive upfront and milestone payments that, together with research funding from Novo, could add up to the $2.1 billion total price tag. The companies didn’t provide a detailed breakdown of the funding tranches.
Novo, in turn, will gain access to Vivtex’s unique methods for oral delivery of biologics, such as proteins and peptides, which have historically required injection administration. The Danish drugmaker will also be able to use Vivtex’s unique screening platform, Vivtex co-founder and CEO Thomas von Erlach, Ph.D., told Fierce Biotech.
Once research and formulation of new oral biologics is done, Novo will take on further development and commercialization, according to a Feb. 25 release.
“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,” Brian Vandahl, Ph.D., senior vice president of therapeutic discovery for Novo, said in the release. “We continue to push the boundaries of science through both internal and external innovation to fulfill our mission of treating millions more people living with obesity and diabetes and their associated comorbidities.”
Novo has been struggling to regain its footing over obesity rival Eli Lilly, but it did beat Lilly to market with a GLP-1 pill in early January. Analysts were pleased with the quick uptake of Novo’s Wegovy pill, which rocketed out of the gate with around 20,000 prescriptions in its second week.
Otherwise, Novo has faced a continuous string of setbacks in the last year. Longtime CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen departed last summer, and new leader Maziar Mike Doustdar instituted a restructuring that resulted in roughly 9,000 job cuts. More recently, Novo’s share price plummeted after experimental weight loss combo CagriSema failed to top Lilly’s Zepbound (tirzepitide) in a phase 3 trial.
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With the Vivtex deal, Novo is looking to extend its lead in oral delivery. Vivtex started in the MIT labs of Langer and Giovanni Traverso, Ph.D., where von Erlach began developing a system for screening how well drugs are absorbed by different parts of the gastrointestinal tract.
The GI tract is a complex and “really fascinating organ,” von Erlach told Fierce, “designed by evolution to be selective [about] what chemicals are being let into the body and what chemicals are not being let in the body.”
Vivtex has spent years under the radar perfecting its approach, the CEO said, creating a model of an entire GI tract—complete with all the nooks and crannies—that can be used for high-throughput screening of new drug delivery mechanisms. No matter where in the GI tract a potential drug is taken up, von Erlach explained, the Vivtex tech can detect it.
The biotech formulates new delivery designs using standard, well-understood components to make its products more attractive for potential pharma partners like Novo. The company is solely focused on partnerships at the moment, von Erlach said, with its furthest along program an oral drug candidate currently in phase 1 with an undisclosed collaborator.
“We really see still a big untapped opportunity in further expanding our partnerships,” von Erlach said, a roster of collaborators that also includes pacts with Astellas Pharma, Equillium and Orbis Medicines. But he is interested in Vivtex potentially trying to engineer drug candidates of its own someday.
“That could be initially as a completely standalone activity, but it could also be something that we potentially do as part of our partnership efforts,” he speculated. But trying to compete with biopharmas like Novo Nordisk in the drugmaking game is not an appealing task in the short term, he added.
“They’re pretty good in doing what they’re doing,” von Erlach said.
