Novo Inks Potential $1.46B Deal to Tap Neomorph’s Molecular Glue Discovery Platform
27 Feb 2024
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Pictured: Novo Nordisk's office in California/iStock, hapabapa
Novo Nordisk has signed a collaboration and licensing deal with Neomorph to discover, develop and commercialize molecular glue degraders for cardiovascular and rare diseases, the San Diego-based biotech announced on Monday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Novo will make an upfront payment and Neomorph will be entitled to near-term milestones on top of R&D funding. The biotech will also be eligible for future clinical, commercial and sales milestone payouts. The partners have yet to disclose the specific breakdown of payments but said that the overall deal value can reach up to $1.46 billion for multiple targets, plus tiered royalties.
Neomorph will lead the discovery and preclinical studies for specific targets selected by Novo, which will have the exclusive rights to take these candidates through clinical development and commercialization.
Brian Vandahl, senior vice president of global research technologies at Novo, in a statement said that the company is “pleased” to partner with Neomorph, which will help it advance “new treatment solutions for people living with serious chronic diseases.”
At the center of the licensing agreement is Neomorph’s targeted protein degradation platform, which makes use of “molecular glues” or agents that redirect the cell’s innate disposal mechanism to pathologic proteins, marking them for destruction. According to the biotech’s website, molecular glues can solve the problem of previously undruggable targets by opening them up to attack despite having no suitable binding pockets.
For Neomorph, the Novo partnership will also help the biotech expand its platform “into new therapeutic areas, complementing our on-going efforts in oncology,” the company said.
Though relatively new, the molecular glue space has garnered growing attention from the biopharma industry recently.
In September 2023, Genentech paid $47 million upfront for Orionis Biosciences’ molecular glue platform, channeling the technology for oncology and neurodegeneration targets. As in the case of Novo and Neomorph, the biotech will take charge of the earliest stages—such as discovery and optimization—while the pharma will be responsible for further development, including preclinical and clinical studies.
Genentech has pledged up to $2 billion in the deal.
In April 2023, Merck jumped into the molecular glue game with a potential $2.55 billion contract with Viennese biotech Proxygen. Details of the deal were mostly kept under wraps, though the partners have said that they will leverage the biotech’s platform that can identify glue degraders through a systematic and scalable approach.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
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