Novo Nordisk partners with Valo Health on AI drug discovery

Novo Nordisk
NVO,
-0.39%
on Monday announced a partnership with Valo Health Inc., a technology company specializing in AI-powered drug discovery and development, to focus on new cardiometabolic drug programs. The Danish pharmaceutical giant, maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, has also licensed three preclinical cardiovascular drug discovery programs from Valo, the companies said in a release. The terms of the agreement give Valo upfront and near-term payments of up to $60 million and milestone payments of up to $2.7 billion, plus research and development funding and potential royalty payments, the companies said. “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,” Novo Nordisk chief scientific officer Marcus Schindler said in a statement. Novo’s American depositary receipts fell 0.3% premarket on Monday and have gained 35% in the year to date, while the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.09%
has gained 12.5%.