Valo Health and Novo Nordisk to collaborate to discover and develop novel treatments for cardiometabolic diseases using human data and artificial intelligence

Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, US and Bagsværd, Den­mark, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2023 – Valo Health, Inc. and Novo Nordisk A/S today announced they have entered into an agree­ment to dis­cov­er and devel­op nov­el treat­ments for car­diometa­bol­ic dis­eases based on Valo’s large human dataset and com­pu­ta­tion pow­ered by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI).

The col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two orga­ni­za­tions will lever­age the capa­bil­i­ties of Valo’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™ includ­ing access to real-world patient data, AI-enabled small mol­e­cule dis­cov­ery and Biowire® human tis­sue mod­el­ling plat­form designed to speed up the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process. 

Valo’s pre­clin­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties enable iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion of nov­el drug­gable tar­gets, as well as devel­op­ment of drug can­di­dates against these tar­gets, and can help pre­dict com­pound safe­ty and efficacy. 

In addi­tion to tar­get dis­cov­ery and val­i­da­tion as part of the col­lab­o­ra­tion, Novo Nordisk is licens­ing three pre­clin­i­cal drug dis­cov­ery pro­grams in car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases dis­cov­ered and devel­oped by Valo using the Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Platform™. 

Under the terms of the agree­ment, Valo will receive an upfront pay­ment and a poten­tial near-term mile­stone pay­ment, total­ing $60 mil­lion, and is eli­gi­ble to receive mile­stone pay­ments for up to 11 pro­grams, total­ing up to $2.7 bil­lion, plus R&D fund­ing and poten­tial roy­al­ty pay­ments. The part­ner­ship between Novo Nordisk and Valo will lever­age key joint capa­bil­i­ties in human data and genet­ics with a strong­hold in car­diometa­bol­ic diseases. 

“Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and machine learn­ing hold the promise to pos­i­tive­ly impact drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment, in par­tic­u­lar enabling our vision of lever­ag­ing human datasets ear­ly in the process, which should lead to a bet­ter under­stand­ing of tar­get biol­o­gy,” said Mar­cus Schindler, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and chief sci­en­tif­ic offi­cer of Novo Nordisk. ​“Valo brings a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed and pow­er­ful approach to using these tech­nolo­gies on real-world human data to gen­er­ate new insights and trans­late them into poten­tial ther­a­peu­tics for the ben­e­fit of patients suf­fer­ing from car­diometa­bol­ic con­di­tions. I am very much look­ing for­ward to our collaboration.” 

By secur­ing access to Valo’s pro­pri­etary Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™, Novo Nordisk com­ple­ments its exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy base. The col­lab­o­ra­tion allows for a close part­ner­ship between the two com­pa­nies, with activ­i­ties that could span the entire drug dis­cov­ery con­tin­u­um. Novo Nordisk and Valo plan to work togeth­er to derive nov­el insights from human genet­ic and lon­gi­tu­di­nal patient data in car­dio­vas­cu­lar disease. 

“Part­ner­ing with Novo Nordisk, a leader in car­diometa­bol­ic dis­ease, cre­ates a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue to deploy our Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™ at scale in the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of nov­el car­diometa­bol­ic ther­a­peu­tics,” said Valo CEO and founder David Berry. ​“We are excit­ed to imple­ment the full spec­trum of our plat­form span­ning from dis­ease char­ac­ter­i­za­tion through clin­i­cal devel­op­ment as we aim to deliv­er new ther­a­peu­tics to ben­e­fit patients liv­ing with some of the most preva­lent chron­ic dis­eases of our time.” 

About the Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™

Valo’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™ is an inte­grat­ed, end-to-end drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment plat­form with a uni­fied archi­tec­ture found­ed upon high-qual­i­ty, pro­pri­etary and dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed human-cen­tric data and pur­pose-built AI. Opal is designed to enable a ful­ly inte­grat­ed, effi­cient approach for tar­get­ing and advanc­ing prod­uct can­di­dates, from under­stand­ing the under­ly­ing dis­ease through reg­u­la­to­ry approval. 

About Valo Health

Valo Health, Inc is a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny focused on uti­liz­ing large scale data and AI-dri­ven com­pu­ta­tion to dis­cov­er and devel­op ther­a­peu­tics. Valo aims to ful­ly inte­grate human-cen­tric data across the entire drug devel­op­ment life cycle into a sin­gle uni­fied archi­tec­ture, there­by accel­er­at­ing the dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment of life-chang­ing drugs while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly reduc­ing costs, time, and fail­ure rates. The company’s Opal Com­pu­ta­tion­al Plat­form™ is an end-to-end drug dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment plat­form with a uni­fied archi­tec­ture designed to trans­form data into valu­able insights that may accel­er­ate dis­cov­er­ies and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline of pro­grams, ini­tial­ly focused on car­dio­vas­cu­lar meta­bol­ic renal, oncol­o­gy, and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease. Found­ed by Flag­ship Pio­neer­ing and head­quar­tered in Boston, MA, Valo also has offices in Lex­ing­ton, MA, and New York, NY. To learn more, vis­it val​o​health​.com.

About Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk is a lead­ing glob­al health­care com­pa­ny, found­ed in 1923 and head­quar­tered in Den­mark. Our pur­pose is to dri­ve change to defeat seri­ous chron­ic dis­eases, built upon our her­itage in dia­betes. We do so by pio­neer­ing sci­en­tif­ic break­throughs, expand­ing access to our med­i­cines, and work­ing to pre­vent and ulti­mate­ly cure dis­ease. Novo Nordisk employs about 59,000 peo­ple in 80 coun­tries and mar­kets its prod­ucts in around 170 coun­tries. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it novonordisk​.com, Face­book, X, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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