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

Collaboration will apply Valo’s Opal Computational Platform™ and real-world patient dataset to enable the discovery and development of novel cardiometabolic drug programs


Novo Nordisk licenses three preclinical drug discovery programs in cardiovascular diseases discovered and developed by Valo using the Opal Computational Platform™


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

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.


Con­tacts for fur­ther infor­ma­tion

Novo Nordisk Media:
Mar­tin Hav­torn Petersen
+45 3075 5246 
mhpz@​novonordisk.​com
Eliz­a­beth DeLu­ca (US)
+1 609 580 9868 
edel@​novonordisk.​com
Novo Nordisk investors:
Daniel Muus­mann Bohsen
+45 3075 2175 
dabo@​novonordisk.​com
Jacob Mar­tin Wiborg Rode
+45 3075 5956 
jrde@​novonordisk.​com
David Heiberg Land­st­ed
+45 3077 6915 
dhel@​novonordisk.​com
Mark Joseph Root (US)
+1 848 213 3219 
mjhr@​novonordisk.​com
Sina Mey­er
+45 3075 6656
azey@​novonordisk.​com
Fred­erik Tay­lor Pit­ter
+45 3075 8259
fptr@​novonordisk.​com
Valo Health Media: Valo Health Investors:
Kate Clay­ton
kclayton@​valohealth.​com
Graeme Bell
gbell@​valohealth.​com