Novo Nordisk and JDRF to collaborate on diabetes

Novo Nordisk is allying with diabetes research organisation JDRF to help discover and develop new immunotherapies.

The collaboration will target the underlying autoimmune process that is central to type 1 diabetes in order to help create compounds to prevent, treat and cure the disease, based on research originating from academia, biotechnology firms and Novo Nordisk itself.

Dr Matthias von Herrath will lead a team of 20 immunotherapy researchers at the company's recently-opened type 1 diabetes research and development centre in Seattle, with the aim of rapidly progressing projects to the clinical trial phase.

Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, executive vice-president and chief science officer at Novo Nordisk, said: "At Novo Nordisk, our vision is to prevent, treat and ultimately cure diabetes, and every collaboration down that path brings us closer to that goal."

In April, Novo Nordisk announced a new collaboration with the University of Oxford, which will focus on discovering new drugs, biomarkers and treatment targets for rheumatoid arthritis.