Denmark’s Novo Nordisk (NVO) struck a deal with U.S.-based health tech firm Valo Health to use artificial intelligence (AI) to discover and develop treatments for cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.
The two companies will use Valo’s Opal Computational Platform to access real-world patient data, AI-enabled small molecule discovery, and the Biowire platform, which can make heart tissue out of human cardiac cell samples.1
The deal gives privately-held Valo an upfront payment and potential near-term milestone payment of $60 million, with the possibility of receiving milestone payments for as many as 11 programs totaling up to $2.7 billion, plus research and development funding and possible royalties.
Along with the collaboration efforts, Novo Nordisk will license three of Valo’s preclinical cardiovascular drug programs.
Marcus Schindler, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president and chief science officer, explained that AI and machine learning “hold the promise to positively impact drug development, in particular enabling our vision of leveraging human datasets early in the process.” He said that should lead to a “better understanding of target biology.”
American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Novo Nordisk lost 0.2% on Monday following the news, but have added one-third of their value so far this year.
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Originally published on Investopedia.com
