Novo Nordisk expands AI drug discovery alliance with Valo Health

DENMARK – Novo Nordisk has significantly expanded its research and development collaboration with Valo Health, a company specializing in artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery.

Building on their 2023 partnership, which initially included 11 programs, the agreement now covers up to nine additional drug discovery initiatives.

This expansion increases the total deal value to approximately US $4.6 billion, including milestone payments, and adds US $190 million in near-term funding to the original US $60 million upfront payment.

The collaboration focuses on developing therapies for cardiometabolic diseases, specifically targeting obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions.

Valo’s Opal platform plays a central role in this effort, offering advanced predictive capabilities for key drug discovery parameters such as pharmacokinetics, toxicity, and the functional effects of compounds.

Unlike many other AI-based systems, Opal integrates real-world human data and tissue modeling early in the discovery process, providing a more comprehensive understanding of target biology.

Marcus Schindler, Novo Nordisk’s chief scientific officer, expressed satisfaction with the progress achieved during the first year of the collaboration.

He highlighted the expanded focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes, noting that several novel targets with potential for differentiated cardiometabolic therapies have already been identified.

Schindler also emphasized Novo Nordisk’s commitment to leveraging this partnership to bring more innovative drug programs into clinical development.

Brian Alexander, CEO of Valo Health and CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering, described the partnership as a testament to the success of their human-centric AI approach.

 “The partnership fully leverages the Opal Computational Platform by seeking to identify novel therapeutic targets in large real-world patient datasets, validate those targets using human preclinical models, and develop therapeutics against those targets with human-centric AI small molecule design,” he said.

Both companies are currently advancing multiple small-molecule candidates, all of which remain in the preclinical stage.

Their efforts aim to extract insights from human genetic data and longitudinal patient studies, particularly at the intersection of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

The expanded agreement provides a timely boost for Valo Health, which recently faced a setback after its lead in-house drug candidate for diabetic retinopathy failed in a phase 2 trial.

Despite this, Valo remains optimistic about the potential of the ROCK1/2 program and is actively seeking a development partner to advance it further.

This collaboration is part of Novo Nordisk’s broader efforts to explore innovative approaches in metabolic research.

Before this agreement, Novo Nordisk also partnered with Variant Bio to identify new targets for treating metabolic diseases.