Novo Nordisk sells three metabolic disorder programmes

Novo Nordisk has announced the sale of three programmes for the treatment of metabolic disorders to TransTech.

These programmes include the distinct therapeutic approaches of H3 receptor antagonists, PPARd agonists and 11betaHSD1 inhibitors.

Novo Nordisk selected TransTech to develop these three programmes as a result of the companies’ earlier successes on the development of innovative compounds.

In January 2007, Novo Nordisk decided to divest all its existing preclinical and clinical small-molecule projects and focus all its research and development resources on its protein-based pharmaceuticals pipeline.

Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, executive vice-president and chief scientific officer of Novo Nordisk, said: “We are very pleased to place our programmes in such good hands.

“We have previously partnered with TransTech and know that TransTech has the capability to effectively and expeditiously proceed with the further development of these programmes.”

He added that this decision facilitates the focusing of its research and development efforts on therapeutic proteins, while it retains a financial stake in the metabolic disorder programmes as a shareholder in TransTech.

In June 2007, Novo Nordisk announced the opening of a pilot plant in Hillerod, Denmark for the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products based on mammalian-cell cultured proteins.