Novo Nordisk licenses Nanexa's PharmaShell platform in $1.33B deal for long-acting obesity and diabetes injectables
核心洞察
Novo Nordisk has signed a global licensing agreement worth up to 1.165 billion euros ($1.33 billion) to apply Nanexa (搜索)'s PharmaShell (搜索) drug-delivery technology to its obesity (搜索) and type 2 diabetes (搜索) medicines.
The deal grants Novo exclusive rights to use PharmaShell (搜索) across up to five development programs, with the companies targeting monthly and quarterly dosing instead of current regimens.
PharmaShell (搜索) applies an ultra-thin inorganic coating to drug particles that forms a depot at the injection site, releasing drug into the bloodstream as the coating dissolves.
Novo Nordisk has secured an exclusive global license to Nanexa (搜索)'s long-acting injectable drug delivery platform, PharmaShell (搜索), in a deal worth up to 1.165 billion euros ($1.33 billion), the companies disclosed. The agreement covers the use of the technology with certain peptides in obesity (搜索), type 2 diabetes (搜索) and other cardiometabolic diseases, and gives the Danish drugmaker rights to apply the platform across up to five development programs.
The two groups are targeting monthly and quarterly administration of the resulting medicines, extending dosing windows well beyond current injectable regimens. Novo has identified the technology as a good fit for its plans to differentiate its medicines through longer dosing intervals.
How PharmaShell works
PharmaShell (搜索) applies an inorganic coating to drug particles. Once injected, the coated particles form depots at the injection site, and as the coating dissolves, drug particles enter the bloodstream. Nanexa (搜索) describes the approach as an ultra-thin inorganic coating that controls drug release over time, based on atomic layer deposition technology.
Deal structure
The upfront payment plus development and regulatory milestones are worth up to 615 million euros ($700 million). A further 550 million euros ($626 million) is tied to sales milestones. Neither company has disclosed the size of the upfront payment. The agreement also provides for low single-digit royalties on future product sales.
Nanexa (搜索) reported full-year revenues of approximately $3.89 million for 2025, a 48.4% increase on the previous year. The company previously entered a collaboration with Moderna, which paid Nanexa $3 million for an arrangement that could be worth up to $500 million in total.
"With this agreement, Nanexa (搜索) enters a new era of considerable financial strength, allowing us to significantly expand applications of our unique [atomic layer deposition] technology to other therapeutic areas and giving us an opportunity to build a sustainable long-term business," said Nanexa chair Göran Ando.
Nanexa (搜索) CEO David Westburg said the agreement "provides a strong foundation for expanding PharmaShell (搜索) into additional therapeutic areas and to selectively advance additional internal programs towards clinical proof of concept, allowing us to capture greater value from the breadth of the PharmaShell platform."
Novo's once-monthly GLP-1 ambitions
The licensing deal lands days after Novo discussed its current pipeline of long-acting injectables at a Capital Markets Day. Chief scientific officer Martin Holst Lange, M.D., Ph.D., set out plans to take a once-monthly GLP-1 (搜索) drug into the clinic this year.
"Over the next one year, I would say, we actually expect to see at least three or four first human doses with once-monthly GLP-1 (搜索), because I cannot promise you, obviously, that the first will be the best," Lange said. "We need to fully understand the half-life of this. You've seen half-lives from others. They're not necessarily lending themselves fully to a once-monthly therapy."
Lange also addressed the competitive landscape for monthly GLP-1 (搜索) therapies. Pfizer reported data in February on its once-monthly GLP-1 drug candidate, a molecule acquired through its $10 billion takeover of Metsera, a biotech Novo also attempted to buy. Asked in June about Pfizer's results, Lange said, "I'm not sure that the data were as compelling as we had hoped for, in particular, on the tolerability side, but also a little bit on the efficacy side."
"They really had to think about their titration because the once-monthly tolerability was not as attractive as I would have expected," Lange said. "To give patients something in a once-monthly setting, the proposition has to be that it is a very attractive tolerability profile."
Novo markets Wegovy and Ozempic, and the PharmaShell (搜索) license is aimed at extending the dosing intervals of its injectable cardiometabolic portfolio.