With Novo Nordisk’s name already synonymous with treatments for diabetes and obesity, the Danish drugmaker has been making a concerted push to bolster its pipeline beyond GLP-1 stalwarts Ozempic and Wegovy, branching out into other cardiometabolic conditions like metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Now, as part of that development odyssey, the company is tapping into an emerging protein technology from Photys Therapeutics. Under a new research collaboration unveiled Wednesday, Novo will pay Photys up to $186 million in upfront, development and commercial milestone payments to help develop proximity-based therapeutics for an unnamed cardiometabolic disease target. The deal—which will also see Photys receive R&D funding and potential tiered royalties on commercial sales—hinges on the biotech’s Phosphorylation Inducing Chimeric Small molecules (PHICS) technology. The company has designed its proprietary platform to induce proximity between a kinase and a protein of interest in order to phosphorylate that target and change its biologic function, Photys explained in a release.

Full report : Novo Nordisk invests $186 million in cardiometabolic research startup, Photys.